Vladimir Putin, Russia’s tyrannical president, was a low-ranking KGB operative in East Germany when Leonid Brezhnev, a Ukrainian who ruled the Soviet Union for 18 years, ordered the invasion of Afghanistan in December 24, 1979.
Putin knows little about the cost of that calamitous miscalculation by Brezhnev. By the time the Soviet Union was chased out of Afghanistan in February 1989, it had lost thousands of soldiers and billions of rubles in the failed invasion of a primitive country.
Russian generals have a penchant for catastrophic battle field tactical blunders. They fought World War 11 by retreating to the vast stretches of Mother-Russia and consolidating their lines against the invaders.
That blunder cost the Soviet Union millions of civilian and military lives as Nazi Germany occupied a chunk of the Soviet Union 10 times the size of Germany. The Nazi blitzkrieg was only halted by the early arrival of 1941’s disastrous winter which allowed the Soviets to stage a belated counter-offensive that pushed back the invaders.
In Afghanistan, a similar tactical blunder resulted in massive casualties including the commander of the invading Soviet forces. The commander of the invasion, a colonel who was the commandant of the KGB school of terrorism, personally led the attack on the Afghan presidential palace.
As he advanced into the president’s office, he instructed his troops left at strategic points, to kill anyone coming out of the palace. Inside the palace, he met a stiff resistance from the Afghan presidential guard and decided to run back to call for reinforcement. He was killed instantly by a volley of “friendly fire” as his troops mistook him for a fleeing Afghan soldier.
We are beginning to see similar battle field tactical blunders in the invasion of Ukraine. Military tacticians expected the Russians to seize Kiev within two days of the invasion and topple the government of Ukraine like the Soviets did in Afghanistan in 1979. Ironically, Russia’s 60-kilometer convoy of tanks and armoured personnel carriers is grievously bugged down.
The world’s largest military machine is already recording rather reprehensible casualties in a combat with a weak country. Ukraine claims that its army killed 6,000 Russian soldiers in the first six days of the invasion. Russia sheepishly admitted losing 600 soldiers during the period.
The truth lies somewhere between claims of the two warring factions. There are fears in western military circles that Russia might have lost close to 2,000 soldiers to the unexpectedly stiff resistance from Ukraine in the first six days of the campaign. That is a humiliating cost given the fact that the U.S. lost just about 4,000 soldiers in the 20 years it occupied Afghanistan. It is obvious that Putin’s military machine is incapable of a blitzkrieg. The war in Ukraine is a slow destruction in progress. It will cruelly, but slowly slaughter Ukrainians and decimate the economy.
Putin is biting the finger that fed Russia. Two Ukrainians, Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, ruled the Soviet Union for 26 years and developed Russia to what it is today. The wicked tyrant in the Kremlin is paying them back by incinerating their motherland.
Putin has levied war on the whole world. The economic cost of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will be felt by the whole world just like COVID -19.
Russia’s economy is already taking a rather disproportionate share of the cost of the invasion. The Kremlin has shut down Russia’s beleaguered capital market as share prices plummeted by 40 per cent in the opening hours of the tragic invasion. The closure pre-empted total collapse of share prices.
The ruble, Russia’s currency, has depreciated to a record low. At the close of last week, a ruble was just the equivalent of a U.S. cent. Russia’s central bank raised minimum lending rates by more than 100 per cent from nine to 20 per cent in the first day of the invasion and promptly shut down its forex window as there was a run on the ruble.
One of Russia’s leading banks is tottering on the brink as there is a run on it with depositors panicking to withdraw their hard-earned money which they feel is safer under their pillows. Putin’s war on Ukraine is very unpopular at home. He has arrested and detained 6,000 Russians for protesting against the senseless invasion. More are still protesting in more than 50 cities. Despite that, about 10,000 dare-devil agitators have petitioned the Russian president demanding an end to the cruel invasion.
The world is already paying for Putin’s war in Ukraine with record high price of crude oil. The price of Brent crude, the equivalent of Nigeria’s Bonny Light, closed last week at $114 per barrel. There are fears that oil price may be heading for $120.
With 70 per cent of Russia’s crude oil shut out of the market by western sanctions restraining the invader from carrying out transactions in dollars, the tight supply in the midst of surging demand as world economies recover from the calamities of COVID-19 would only push up oil prices.
The result of that will be higher cost of production globally as manufacturers and service providers pay more for energy. In Europe, gas consumers are already panicking. The European Union (EU) has been combing the global markets for alternative sources of cooking gas when it became obvious that Putin was poised to invade Ukraine.
The alternative sources cannot readily compensate for the 30 per cent of EU gas supplied by Russia. The drastic drop in supply will trigger massive price hikes which consumers would pay with pains at a time when the inflation induced by COVID-19 is already plaguing global economy.
Oil exporting countries will smile to the banks with huge returns from surging crude oil price. Unfortunately, Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and biggest oil exporter will gain next-to-nothing from the surging crude oil price.
Since refined petroleum products are more expensive than crude oil, virtually all the gains from the surging crude oil price will be used to fund the escalating cost of refined petroleum products imports.
Nigeria might spend close to N4 trillion on petrol subsidy in 2022 given the surging price of crude oil.
The danger in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine with impunity is that compromise is gradually being mistaken for the synonym of surrender. The Chinese are watching the scene with keen interest. When they are sufficiently convinced that out of fear of touching off World War 111, the west would not protect its weak allies from powerful despotic bullies, it would simply invade Taiwan and extend its cruel dictatorship to that bastion of democracy.