During the Second World War Germans would scoff at the Russians, and one of the jokes was of a Russian POW who came across a German soldier’s watch. But it didn’t work. In a moment of insight the Russian realized the problem exclaiming: “Ah! The mechanic is dead!”
Yet there were real-life equivalencies to the Russian war experience, which posed problems for Stalin. As Soviet troops advanced on Berlin, they discovered that the Western capitalist swine (so-called), be they Fascist or not, also had the benefits of flush toilets, something unknown to most, if not all, of ‘mother Russia’. As a result, the invading troops also had to be ‘de-contaminated’ upon the war’s end.
Today, as Russian troops attack Ukraine, there are other psychological problems faced by Putin’s forces who are fighting an undeclared war. In Russia, it is illegal to talk about the activity in Ukraine as a “war”, or as anything other than a “special military exercise” where Russian-language minorities in Eastern Ukraine might welcome Putin’s ‘help’. This puts Russian troops at a tremendous psychological disadvantage, because they are not – or were not – anticipating full-on war as their tanks rolled towards Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. In effect, Russia’s effort amounts to a kind of “Mission Impossible” writ large. We know Putin succeeded in the KGB, but can he effectively mobilize a nation over an official secret?
Perhaps this is why Russian troops are committing war crimes (if reason can be attributable to such atrocities), news of which is now surfacing in widespread media reports. Possibly still thinking of the enemy as “Nazis”, Russians are not only fighting Ukranian soldiers, but find themselves pitted against an entire citizenry, who are prepared to defend their country to the death. So the Russian forces appear to be either seeking vengeance at their own unanticipated war shock or wanting to settle “historical” scores, which is less likely. When making war, one should always expect the unexpected: what can go wrong, will, and this was the greatest lesson of the First World War, “the war to end all wars”. In August 1914 the British had no military plans, and of the European powers they fared better than others, precisely because they had no plans. In February 2022, the Russians began to stall, then flail, simply because their forces did not know of any plans, although there was one, yet troops had not been prepared mentally for the actual grim combat of war against Ukraine.
It is also worth noting that according to the Gini Index, which ranks the income disparities of each nation across much of the globe, Ukraine (along with Finland, interestingly) is placed among the top ten countries where income disparity is least. In other words, the Ukranian sense of ‘solidarity’, ‘nationhood’ and perhaps ‘selflessness’ are well developed, as there is less social ‘envy’ or ‘conflict’ - and success against the Russians is not just attributable to Volodymyr Zelensky’s thespian oratory. Put another way: the country was long primed for shared action, culturally, politically - and economically. Today Ukranians are still determined to defend themselves, and when coupled with military weapons from the West, their spirit becomes a beacon of hope against the powers of a bloodthirsty autocrat.
