Putin’s mines will plague Ukraine for years to come

A Ukrainian colleague told me a joke yesterday. ‘We used to believe the Russians had the second best army in the world. Now we know they have the second best army in Ukraine.’ Five weeks ago, most people would have bet that after a month of Russian aggression, Kyiv and Kharkiv would have fallen, and the Ukrainians would have been pushed back into the Carpathians. Yet a combination of home match, high morale, sensible tactics, defence advantage and foreign weapons has given Ukraine the edge.

By contrast, Russia has scored own-goal after own-goal: hubris born of a belief in the ease of the initial victory; a bad plan with no main effort; reliance on conscripted cannon fodder; poor command and control; insecure communication systems; an amateur grasp of combined arms tactics; poor coordination; lack of precision guided munitions; execrable logistics. The list goes on. Even the vaunted Russian cyber bear hasn’t growled.