Russia Ukraine Conflict: There is More To It Than Meets the Eye – Team STRIVE

Update Russia Ukraine Conflict: There is More to it than meets the Eye

• Europe’s biggest war since the second world war began with the common perception that Russia would wind up the Special Military Operations quickly and pull out of Ukraine after achieving its stated objectives of preventing eastward expansion of NATO, liberating the Eastern Region, Denazification and demilitarisation of Ukraine and establishing a pro-Russian dispensation in Kiev.
• However, thanks to constant flow of military aid to Ukraine from the West especially the US and some determined resistance by the Ukrainian military, the initial Russian Offensive which was akin to a Blitzkrieg from three directions viz., North via Belarus, East via the already held areas of Donbas by the Russian Supported DPR and LPR resistance forces and from the South by Amphibious Forces after the initial successes met with serious opposition forcing Russia to regroup and relaunch a slow but determined operations from the East and the South with the aim of liberating the Donbas and securing the important port cities in the South of Mariupol, Mykolaiv, Kherson and Odessa. While it has managed to get control of all these cities it is far away from securing Odessa.
• Progress of battle as on the 12 June 2022 i.e. the 109^th day of the Special Military Operations as far as Russia is concerned and war as far as Ukraine is concerned.
  • Russian forces seek to extend control in eastern city of Severodonetsk
  • They are continuing to attack Ukrainian positions north of Kharkiv city
  • In the south, Mariupol is said to be at risk of a major cholera outbreak
  • Russian forces hold defensive positions in southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia.
  • Eastern cities are under heavy bombardment
  • While Ukrainian forces are running out of weapons and ammunition and losing life rapidly at a rate of 60 to 100 people per day, Russia is also suffering great losses both in term of lives and weaponry vastly depleting their war stamina.
  • In fact, there are predictions of Ukraine surrendering within a few days
• How will the war end still remains the foremost question in the mind of common public and Heads of most of the countries alike? Some issues that clearly stand out are as follows: –
  • Threat of economic sanctions, however severe, does not deter physical aggression.
  • National capacity and capability building for multi-domain operations both within and outside the Armed Forces – PDIME(political, diplomatic, Informational, military and economic), Cyber, Information Warfare, Perception Management, PSYOPS and Legal is no more an optional means of warfighting but a necessity.
  • However, the perception that an ‘all-out war’ or military invasion is a thing of the past, has been turned on its head, and that too in Europe!
• Likewise, there are many other questions such as the impact on the global economy due to the double impact of war and COVID which seems to be raising its head once again, global world order, the efficacy of the UN, how will China finally react to the brewing Taiwan crisis in the Indo – Pacific, what will be the shape of new emerging regional alignments and above all what is going to be the impact on India due to the war, its economy, diplomacy, defence capability building, and warfighting doctrine and strategy?
• To answer all these complex questions we have got together for you a highly distinguished panel of speakers were:-
  • Andrew Kourtunov, Director General, Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC).
  • C. Christin Fair. Associate Professor in the Security Studies Program within the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at George Town University, USA.
  • Lt Gen Vinod Bhatia, PVSM, AVSM, SM (Retd) Ex DGMO, India, former GOC Corps and Director Centre for Joint Warfare Studies (CENJOWS).
  • Moderator: Lt Gen. Dushyant Singh, PVSM, AVSM (Retd), Prof. Emeritus Rashtriya Raksha University, Ex Commandant Army War College (AWC), Ex GOC Corps.