The Russian Military After Ukraine, A Lion Or Paper Tiger?: The Russian military was the boogeyman in the United States for decades. During the 1950s, Joe McCarthy had everyone seeing red. During the 1960s, U.S. children practiced for incoming nuclear attacks by hiding under their desks. In the 1970s and 1980s, the worry was that the Soviet war machine would charge through the Fulda Gap and into Western Europe, followed by nuclear war. And then, in 1991, it all went away.
The Soviet Union collapsed in on itself, bankrupted by the efforts of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who forced the Soviets to compete with American manufacturing in a race they could not win. Then came Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB operative who dreamed of returning to the days of the Red Army, and eventually Russia invaded Ukraine.
As Russia’s “special military operation” nears the end of year three, what is the endgame for Russia’s military after the war is over?
Should Western nations tremble at the thought of masses of Russian tanks perched on their borders? Or are we once again looking at a paper tiger?
Russia Invades Ukraine February 2022
In the early morning hours of Feb. 24, 2024, Russia’s armed forces crossed Ukraine’s borders and launched an assault toward Kyiv, the capital.
The war had actually started in 2014, when the Russians annexed Crimea and tried the same in the Donbas region. In 2021, Putin issued outlandish claims that the government of Ukraine was run by neo-Nazis, and they were committing genocide against the Russian-speaking people of the Donbas. So, in February 2022, Putin announced a “special military operation” to free the people from their supposed oppression.
The attacks came from Belarus in the north toward Kyiv, from a southern front from Crimea, and an eastern front from the Donbas toward Kharkiv. The Russians were extremely overconfident. They expected to take Kyiv in a few days, and the remainder of the country within a week.
However, the Ukrainians resisted. Their artillery took a severe toll on Russian armor that was bottlenecked on major roads. The drive toward Kyiv was disastrous, and as they retreated, Russians massacred civilians in Bucha.
Casualties on both sides were terrible, and after some early successes, the Russians were pushed back in several provinces. Now, the war has devolved into a bloody stalemate, with Russia holding about 20% of Ukraine’s territory.
Russia Advances in Ukraine in Late 2024
Thanks to a massive influx of military equipment from the West, but mainly from the U.S., in 2023, Ukrainian counterattacks initially made some significant gains, but they eventually ground to a halt. The same thing happened with a later Ukrainian assault on Russia’s Kursk region.
The Russians began a renewed assault in Eastern Ukraine in late 2024, and they began to make significant gains again, as Ukrainian manpower dwindled and their stockpiles of Western weapons and ammunition dried up.
They still hammer Ukrainian civilian infrastructure with missiles and airstrikes. But even with an influx of 10,000 North Korean soldiers, and Russian reservists who enter the battlespace poorly trained and worse-equipped, the meat-grinding stalemate continues.
What Is the End Game?
U.S. President Donald Trump has entered into peace talks with Russia without involving Ukraine. It looks more and more like Trump will pull all U.S. support from the embattled country. Can Ukraine win regardless? Possibly, but they’ll need a lot more support from the European Union than they are getting. In a war of attrition, they can’t keep up with a Russia that has many times over its population.
In addition, Russia controls its press, as a result of which most of the country doesn’t truly know the extent of their casualties. If they did, perhaps the regime in Moscow would be in peril.
Baltics And Kola Peninsula
Russia believes that the outcome in Ukraine is inevitable. According to Dr. Yury Fedorov, a Ph.D. author and expert on Russian politics and military affairs, Russian leadership plans to build up sizable troop formations for a possible conflict with NATO in the Baltic region and the Kola Peninsula.
They mean to accomplish this by calling up an additional 350,000 reserves, which would bring their military to 1.5 million. However, their casualties in Ukraine in 2024 will be nearly the same—about 30,000 a month.
“Russia is getting larger, and they’re getting better than they were before. … They are actually larger than they were when [the invasion] kicked off,” Air Force General James Hecker said to the media at the Air & Space Forces Association’s annual Air, Space & Cyber Conference.
Russian T-14 Armata Tank. Image Credit: Social Media Screenshot.
“Russia is going to be something that we’re going to have to deal with for a long time, no matter how this thing ends,” Hecker added.
In 2023, Russia added 490,000 troops, 277,000 of whom were conscripts. Its military spending remains about 6% of its GDP. Russia realized a bit late (350,000 soldiers too late) that it needed better-trained and better-equipped troops and is now trying to re-enact the Shoigu modernization model.
Is Russia A Real Threat to NATO?
If Putin were actually to invade a NATO country, the act would trigger NATO Charter Article 5, which states that an armed attack on one member country is considered an attack on all members.
That would start World War III. And considering the beating his troops have taken in Ukraine, which isn’t considered an especially powerful military, how would Putin’s troops fare against the combined armies, air forces, and navies of NATO?
Su-57 Felon. Image Credit: Screengrab from X.
The Russians tout their Su-57 fighter jet as an answer to the fifth-generation F-35. They have a few dozen Su-57s. NATO, including forward-deployed U.S. Air Force contingents, has more than 600 F-35s. Russian air defenses would be wiped out. NATO would quickly have air superiority, if not total dominance.
Russia’s troops are entering combat in Ukraine barely equipped and poorly trained. In two to three years, will they be trained or equipped well enough to withstand another war, this time against much better-trained troops? Their surface fleet would remain bottled up in northern ports. However, their submarine force is formidable.
Russia doesn’t have enough missiles to wage war in Ukraine now. They need to rely on their nefarious allies. Command and control for NATO’s armies is much superior to that of Russia, which has been transitioning back to Soviet-era C2.
Sanctions by the West will continue to take a toll on the Russian economy as well as their military-industrial complex. Putin has suffered from visions of grandeur for decades. If his hubris carries him to war with NATO, it may be the end of him. Russia is a formidable opponent, but they will badly lose in a conventional conflict with NATO.
About the Author:
Steve Balestrieri is a 19FortyFive National Security Columnist. He served as a US Army Special Forces NCO and Warrant Officer. In addition to writing for 19FortyFive, he covers the NFL for PatsFans.com and is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA). His work was regularly featured in many military publications.
