FLASH
Shkruar nga Elisabeth Braw
If Russia wants to intimidate Finland by announcing that it will retaliate for the country's admission to NATO, it must have plenty of troops at its disposal. Russia simply does not have.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently threatened to deploy troops near the country's border with Finland. This is a heavy blow, considering that the border is more than 1,300 kilometers long.
Finland now enjoys the protection of its NATO allies, meaning Putin's threat is unlikely to cause any existential angst.
But this attempt at intimidation will also fail for another crucial reason: Russia does not have enough soldiers.
"We generally had ideal relations with Finland. Just perfect. We have had no claims against each other, especially territorial ones, not to mention other areas. We didn't even have troops; we removed all the troops from there, from the Russian-Finnish border,” Putin complained in an interview with state news agency RIA last month.
However, Finland joined NATO. " That's what they decided. But we didn't have troops there, now we will ," he added.
Putin's complaint was very similar to that of a violent or abusive partner who pretended everything was fine until the other person went to the police or left. Indeed, one wonders if the Kremlin's main occupiers have ever considered the effect their words and actions have on other countries, since it was, of course, Russia's war that prompted Finland to apply for NATO membership.
But the problem with constantly threatening others is that it requires significant resources. If Russia wants to intimidate Finland by announcing that it will retaliate for the country's admission to NATO, it must have plenty of troops at its disposal. Russia simply does not have.
" The Russians will not have the resources to build infrastructure, produce new heavy weaponry and recruit significant numbers of forces on our border before the 2030s ," said retired Major General Pekka Toveri, a former military intelligence chief. Finnish.
Finland is a very demanding operational environment, as the Soviets learned during World War II. The Soviets called it "swamp-forest operations" and it requires special training and equipment that they don't have. Indeed, most of Finland's border area is complete wilderness, which is not suitable for modern mechanized combat.
Meanwhile, Russia's military is so stretched that just months after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin had already transferred its troops stationed near the Finnish border to Ukraine duty, even though Putin claims they left as a sign friendship with Finland.
" They still have the 138th Separate Guards Rifle Brigade in Kamenka near St. Petersburg, about 50 kilometers from the Finnish border. But the garrison is pretty empty, without combat-ready troops because they are all in Ukraine. And all five brigades near us were half strong already before the war. "- noted Toveri
Although Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made belligerent noises when Finland joined NATO, no troops were moved to the Finnish border.
Such is the overstretch of the Russian armed forces, it is not surprising that Finnish leaders have reacted calmly to Putin's announcement.
Indeed, the Russian armed forces have struggled so badly to recruit enough soldiers for the war that they have had to hand over some areas to the mercenaries of the Wagner paramilitary Group, not to mention recruiting prisoners.
About 100,000 convicts have already been recruited for freedom war duty, and because these poorly trained soldiers are killed in large numbers, they must be constantly replenished.
So it was no surprise when a few months after its "special military operation", Russia was forced to execute a partial mobilization, which was only partially successful, as many qualified men had already left the country.
And now Putin, who said late last year that Russia had 617,000 soldiers in Ukraine, wants to further increase the country's armed forces. But it is difficult to maintain a force of 600,000 in Ukraine when the total number of Russian armed forces is 1.15 million.
Perhaps surprisingly, last December Putin ordered the armed forces to be increased to around 1.32 million; at the same time, Shoigu suggested that they should increase to 1.5 million by 2026.
However, this still raises the question of where these soldiers will come from and how good they will be. Not surprisingly, regardless of Wagner and the ex-convicts, rumors that the Kremlin is planning another round of mobilization have begun to circulate.
As the Russian armed forces struggle with the most basic tasks, Finnish politicians can afford not to be alarmed by Putin's threats, for now. But the risk of Russian aggression will remain because Russia seems unlikely to change radically in the near future.
An adversary's military recruitment problems are simply luck, and our luck will not last. This is why Finland and Sweden were wise to join NATO.
But this time, Putin overestimated the strength of Russia's mighty military and underestimated the ability of Western politicians to understand basic arithmetic. / Adapted "Pamphlet", from "Politico"
Lini një Përgjigje