What Russia's invasion of Ukraine says about its military capabilities

It's been more than a month since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin has left a trail of broken-down tanks, military convoys stuck in the mud and thousands of dead Russian troops while the Ukrainian capital remains unoccupied.

Experts say Putin had hoped to quickly take over Kyiv and install a new government. Instead, corruption, poor logistics and low morale among Russian troops has meant that Moscow's invasion hasn't exactly gone according to plan.

U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on March 23 that Russia has "manifestly failed" to accomplish its objectives. On March 17, the U.K.'s Ministry of Defence said Russia's invasion "has largely stalled on all fronts."

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"The Russians are not as good as people assume. They are not 10 feet tall," Aurel Braun, a professor of political science and international relations at the University of Toronto told CTVNews.ca over the phone last Thursday.

POOR PLANNING AND LOGISTICS

On paper, Russia's military prowess should have overwhelmed Ukraine. It has around 12,000 tanks according to Global Fire Power, making it the largest tank fleet in the world, and its air force is the world's second-most powerful with more than 4,000 aircraft.

But Braun says that corruption in the government and in the military means much of this equipment has been poorly maintained over the years. Poor planning within the military has also meant that Russia is failing to replenish its equipment on the front lines, Braun said.

"The massive military investment that Vladimir Putin made the military over the past 10 years did not escape the general corruption in the country," he said.

Videos of abandoned and broken-down Russian tanks in Ukraine have widely circulated throughout social media. The U.K.'s Ministry of Defence has also said logistical problems have been "preventing Russia from effectively resupplying their forward troops with even basic essentials such as food and fuel."

"It doesn't matter how good a tank is. If it runs out of fuel, it's not going to move. So, you have to have the logistics," Braun said.

National security researcher and Queen's University professor Christian Leuprecht notes Russia's "completely dysfunctional logistics system" is one that relies heavily on rail lines. He also adds that much of Russia's military equipment is more than 50 years old, dating back to the Soviet Union.

"Russia wanted to put out the message that it has this invincible military, and people like myself warned that we know the Russians have morale problems, maintenance problems, modernization problems," he told CTVNews.ca over the phone last Thursday.

LOW MORALE AND POOR LEADERSHIP

Experts say the corruption in Russia's military has meant that the Russian soldiers were poorly prepared to engage in this war, leading to poor morale among troops.

"If you have low morale, and the soldiers don't know exactly what they're fighting for … it's very difficult to get more out," Braun said.

Russia had told its troops that the war was necessary to "liberate" the Ukrainian people from their so-called Nazi government, Braun said. "Instead (they) encountered civilian populations that are hostile and tell them that they're not wanted.”

Russian troop deaths have also continued to climb. NATO officials have said that 7,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers have died since the war began.

Leuprecht adds that Russia has "an extremely hierarchical military" that results in "serious communication issues."

"Their commanders on the ground have very little discretion, unlike Western commanders, when it comes to decision making. They constantly have to go back to headquarters and ask, and that way of warfare is clearly proving extremely ineffective and inefficient," he said.

The low morale among the Russian troops is in stark contrast to the "extraordinarily high morale" among the Ukrainians who have taken up arms to defend their country, Braun said.

"They are fighting and they're willing to fight and die for their country to protect their homes, their families. And that has helped Ukrainians overcome the great asymmetry of power," he explained.

RUSSIA'S NEXT MOVES

Despite the Russian military's setbacks, Leuprecht says the Russians can sustain its war with Ukraine "for a long time."

"Yes, it's difficult and it's expensive for them to do this. But we saw this in Chechnya, we saw this in Syria. The Russians can keep up this campaign for a while," he said.

Russia's tactics have evolved as the war has progressed. When the war first began, Russia sent light infantry to take over cities, Leuprecht said. Then, Russia tried to move in on multiple targets at the same time at a larger scale.

"They realized that that wasn't working either because the Ukrainians were surprisingly good at defending," he said.

Now, Leuprecht says the Russians are on "Plan C," where they amass their forces, one city at a time, before moving on to the next city – the most recent city being Mariupol, where 80 per cent of housing has been destroyed, according to local officials.

"I think this is going to be eight months long, slow war of attrition, where the Russians bit by bit are going to start to lay siege to city after city as they can concentrate and amass their forces," he stated.

Defence analyst Alexander Lanoszka of the University of Waterloo said Russia could shift its strategy to consolidate territorial gains in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine and declare victory that way. Last Friday, Sergei Rudskoi, deputy chief of the Russian general staff, said in a speech that Russian forces would focus on "the main goal, the liberation of Donbas."

But even this new "main goal" would still be difficult to accomplish, Lanoszka believes.

"The population there won't be happy. The occupation of that territory will be very difficult to be very expensive. The Russian economy is going to be in tatters. The whole venture very much is questionable," he told CTV's Your Morning on Monday.

CANADA'S ROLE IN NATO

Although Russia's military capabilities may have been overestimated prior to the Ukraine invasion, experts agree that Moscow still poses a serious threat to the West.

"It's not the case that Russia has to be able to overwhelm all of NATO. It's enough if they can threaten the country on the margin," he said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau travelled to Brussels on Wednesday for an emergency summit with other NATO leaders. Trudeau has been under pressure from NATO allies to boost its military spending to the NATO target of two per cent of GDP – a commitment Braun believes Canada should "absolutely" make.

Leuprecht also said Canada's low military spending has also made Canada "an unreliable ally" to other NATO countries.

"We made this contribution to Latvia and to Ukraine, but now that the allies are asking, 'What more are you going to do for us?'" he said. " We have nothing to contribute because we have nothing else to give. There's no other equipment, there's no more soldiers we can send. There's nothing."

Russia is also Canada's neighbour to the north, and Braun says boosting military spending will also help safeguard Canada's Arctic sovereignty.

"You don't want to have a militarization of the Arctic because you don't want to have to fight a war over the passage of civilian ships. Well, guess what Russia is doing? They're militarizing the Arctic and there are engaged in all our hydrocarbon exploration, which is really risky," he said.

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