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Feng Yujun, one of China’s leading Russianists and a professor at Peking University: Russia is sure to lose in Ukraine – The Economist

Four reasons why the Russian Federation will lose to Ukraine, according to Feng Yujun, a professor at Peking University.

🔹 The first is the level of resistance and national unity shown by Ukrainians, which has until now been extraordinary.

🔹 The second is international support for Ukraine, which, though recently falling short of the country’s expectations, remains broad.

🔹 The third factor is the nature of modern warfare, a contest that turns on a combination of industrial might and command, control, communications and intelligence systems. One reason Russia has struggled in this war is that it is yet to recover from the dramatic deindustrialisation it suffered after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

🔹 The final factor is information. When it comes to decision-making, Vladimir Putin is trapped in an information cocoon, thanks to his having been in power so long. The Russian president and his national-security team lack access to accurate intelligence. The system they operate lacks an efficient mechanism for correcting errors. Their Ukrainian counterparts are more flexible and effective.

His conclusion:

🔸 Russia will be forced to withdraw from all occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea.

🔸 Russia’s nuclear capability is no guarantee of success. Feng Yujun gives the example of the United States, which left Vietnam, Korea, and Afghanistan with no less nuclear potential than the Russian Federation has today.

🔸 Kyiv has proven that Moscow is not invincible, so a ceasefire under the “Korean” scenario is ruled out.

🔸 The war is a turning-point for Russia. It has consigned Putin’s regime to broad international isolation. He has also had to deal with difficult domestic political undercurrents, from the rebellion by the mercenaries of the Wagner Group and other pockets of the military — for instance in Belgorod — to ethnic tensions in several Russian regions and the recent terrorist attack in Moscow. These show that political risk in Russia is very high. Mr Putin may recently have been re-elected, but he faces all kinds of possible black-swan events.

🔸 After the war, Ukraine will have the chance join both the EU and NATO, while Russia will lose its former Soviet republics because they see Putin’s aggression there as a threat to their sovereignty and territorial integrity.

According to Feng Yujun, the war, meanwhile, has made Europe wake up to the enormous threat that Russia’s military aggression poses to the continent’s security and the international order, bringing post-cold-war EU-Russia detente to an end. Many European countries have given up their illusions about Mr Putin’s Russia.

Source: The Economist - link in the comment under the post