‘No Dumb Questions’: Why has the war in Ukraine lasted so long?

Joshua Keating, Tom Nagorski and Angelo Leotta

Source Link

It was an early assumption about Russia’s war on Ukraine — in the days just prior to the invasion and then its immediate aftermath: This would be a short war. One of the world’s largest armies was moving on a European nation that lacked the overt backing of NATO and had nowhere near the armed forces or weaponry of the aggressor. The Russian case for war suggested another advantage: The Kremlin argued that Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine wanted the soldiers to come and would welcome the invaders and help in their cause.

That didn’t happen. And today, more than nine months later, the war still rages.

All of which brings us to this installment of this series and the question: Why has the war in Ukraine lasted so long? The answers are in many ways as complicated as the war itself. As Grid’s Global Security Reporter Joshua Keating puts it, “The Russian Army dramatically underperformed and clearly wasn’t prepared for the level of resistance it was going to receive.” Keating has spent much of this year dissecting complex issues about the war, and his contribution to the series now is no exception. From Russian mistakes to Ukrainian preparedness, Putin’s mobilization orders to the support of the West — there’s a lot to cover in one brief video.