OPINION:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated publicly that he believes Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine amounts to a proxy war against NATO.
With Russia having suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties since the war began, Mr. Putin could not admit that his armed forces and intelligence services have grossly underperformed or that Ukraine’s courageous and innovative soldiers have so effectively defended their country from an unprovoked invasion.
Mr. Putin is right: He is at war with democracy. Whatever the cost, the Russian leader could never allow Ukraine, a border nation with a sizable Russian-speaking population, to enjoy the liberty and democratic freedom that Mr. Putin’s massive KGB theme park denies to Russian citizens back home.
Mr. Putin’s Ukraine strategy reminds me of a cautionary tale a Russian intelligence officer once told me about how, if Mr. Putin saw a beautiful house next to his dilapidated one, he would rather burn down his neighbor’s home so all would be forced to live in equal squalor rather than fix up his own place.
The U.S.-led military alliance has indeed supplied Kyiv with much of the military equipment its forces have relied upon to hold off the Kremlin’s murderous onslaught. But NATO never sought this war; the Biden administration tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to deter it.
Mr. Putin chose to launch an unprovoked invasion, and he could end the bloodshed by giving the order to stop raining down hell on Ukrainian civilians.
It is useful to recall that Mr. Putin is not the only dictator who sees the war in Ukraine in terms of a proxy conflict. Iran, China and North Korea, all of whom are providing Russia with significant support to keep the war going, are waging their own proxy war in Ukraine against the U.S. and NATO.
The war in Ukraine is reminiscent of the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War, during which Germany, Italy and Portugal supported the Nationalists while the Soviet Union and Mexico supported the Republicans. Soviet and German military strategists had the opportunity to practice modern combat and learn lessons that the Nazis, in particular, would apply to great effect in their later blitzkrieg attacks in World War II.
North Korea, now producing its own fleet of “suicide drones,” and Iran, which has opened a drone factory in Russia, have gained tactical knowledge useful in both current and future conflicts from the Ukraine war. Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Iran-allied terrorists Hezbollah and Yemeni Houthis have deployed drones effectively to attack Israeli civilian and military targets.
The U.S., the United Kingdom and France all stayed out of the Spanish Civil War, and it’s counterfactual history to assume that Hitler’s plans for a wider war could have been deterred. But Hitler rightly assumed the past would be prologue and the West would respond feebly when his army invaded Poland in 1939.
Similarly, today’s four “axis of tyranny” dictatorships recognize Russia’s war on Ukraine as a precedent for forcibly imposing a sphere of influence in their own neighborhoods through military conquest of sovereign nations. Unlike the Spanish Civil War, however, the West has not remained neutral, and Ukraine has a chance to remain a free and sovereign nation.
In a stunning development last month, Ukraine captured a swath of territory in Russia’s Kursk region, which has forced Moscow to evacuate over 100,000 civilians and declare a regional state of emergency. It was the first time since World War II that Russia has had to fend off an enemy invasion — except this time, Russia does not have brave Ukrainian soldiers to deploy as Stalin did against the Nazis.
Adding to a string of Mr. Putin’s intelligence failures in Ukraine, the Federal Security Service border guards and Russian military failed to detect Ukraine’s pre-attack reconnaissance and defend against the bold attack in Kursk. Ukraine has gained valuable leverage for future peace negotiations while creating a buffer zone from which to continue attacks on Russian rearguard military bases and other assets.
Beyond the tactical gains, Ukraine has also demonstrated to Russia and its axis of tyranny partners that even non-nuclear states can and will defend their sovereignty even against a more powerful, nuclear-armed adversary.
That’s potentially a significant lesson for Chinese President Xi Jinping as he calculates the risks of striking the Philippines or Taiwan and for North Korea’s Kim Jong Un eyeing a future move against South Korea. And it’s an argument against non-nuclear states seeking their own nuclear bomb as the only path to survival.
But only if Ukraine wins.
• Daniel N. Hoffman is a retired clandestine services officer and former chief of station with the Central Intelligence Agency. His combined 30 years of government service included high-level overseas and domestic positions at the CIA.
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