Liz Truss has a dangerously romantic view of wars!

The British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, believes it would be a wonderful idea for young Brits to get arms and go and fight the Ruskies on the side of the brave Ukrainians. Like it's the Spanish Civil War or something. First of all this is outrageously irresponsible. Second it's giving approval for people of this country to put their lives in danger. And third it's a statement that will and has already angered Moscow to a point where Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, claimed it was largely because of what she said that made Putin put Russia's nuclear weapons on high alert. Ok, that's typical Kremlin-talk. But it is still true that an inflammatory remark on the BBC by Truss has just exacerbated what was already a dangerous situation. I note that Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, increasingly looking and sounding like an intelligent, sensible, authoritative politician - so rare these days - advised absolutely the opposite and said Britons should not travel to Ukraine. Truss seems to think that fighting the Russians is some sort of romantic, glamorous game, like something out of an historical romance novel. Fighting the Russians, as the Ukrainians have discovered, is a brutal, lethal, every-minute-life-threatening business. It's not for the fainthearted and it's certainly not for the young Brit who fancies his chances of making a little bit of history for himself. Stay at home, as Ben Wallace has advised. This is a bloody war against a military superpower. So the Russian troops haven't yet fulfilled their leader's order to wrap it all up in less than seven days but I can tell you if it goes on much longer with such strong Ukrainian resistance, Putin will start bombing and shelling and destroying on a far larger scale until he achieves his objective.

Putin's nuclear threat

Putin has suffered a bloody nose. The Ukrainian military have thumped his forces trying to control cities in Ukraine and the whole world bar a few unmentionables have condemned him, the US and Europe have introduced the toughest sanctions ever including banning Russian banks from using the international Swift money-exchange system, and US Treasury aces are now searching for all of Putin's friends' superyachts and property to seize or freeze access to them. Putin is now so angry that he has actually ordered Russia's nuclear forces to go on high alert. This is a seriously dangerous man who has illusions of grandeur and, I fear, a death wish to destroy the world just so that he can get his revenge against, well, everyone else. The BBC has suggested that the raising of the alert status of Russian nuclear weapons doesn't mean that he is going to launch them. Phew, that's a relief. But study the man. Ok, it's very unlikely that he would really press the button because it would lead to a nuclear nightmare and then he would never be able to enjoy the billions of dollars he has stashed away, let alone climb on to his own superyacht to enjoy an evening sunset on the ocean. No, he can't be that stupid. Can he? However, Putin's decision to put Russia's nuclear forces on higher alert was not done for fun or even as a reminder to the West that he can destroy the world if he wants to. He did it, in my view, because he has got to the stage in his paranoia about Nato and the West in general where he might even consider turning to nuclear weapons. He wants to scare the hell out of the world. It's time I think for every Russian general and admiral and spy chief to persuade Putin to calm the hell down and get real. Putin is not just isolated from the world, he is isolated from his inner and outer circle and definitely from the whole Russian population who would like a decent life and food on the table which they are not going to get under Putin's regime.

Ukraine's citizen army takes on the Russians

Could the Russian invasion force face a highly motivated urban guerrilla war if they succeed in occupying and controlling Kyiv and other cities across Ukraine? Determined citizens throwing Molotov cocktails at Russian troops and vehicles will not cow an invasion force as capable and as well-armed as Russia’s army and special forces. However, the history of guerrilla and insurgency warfare has shown that if resistance forces are appropriately and consistently armed by sympathetic foreign governments, an invasion force deployed by a military superpower such as Russia can be effectively opposed and even defeated in time. There are numerous precedents: *The CIA-armed and Pakistan intelligence service -backed Mujahideen fought the Russian occupying forces in Afghanistan for nine years in the 1980s and drove them out of the country. *The US-led coalition force suffered the same ignominy at the hands of the Taliban after 20 years. *The US-led invasion force that defeated Saddam Hussein’s army in 2003 was then challenged by years of guerrilla warfare initially waged by dismissed and disillusioned Iraqi soldiers who metamorphosed into the Islamic state (Isis). A guerrilla war or urban warfare mounted by the Ukrainian people against the Russians would depend on the scale of arms received for a covert battle, coordination and leadership skills crucial for an effective and lengthy campaign, and the level of brutality the armed citizens might face from Russia’s occupiers. Would the people of Kyiv be prepared for or capable of mounting another Stalingrad? The Battle of Stalingrad, from August 23, 1942 to February 2, 1943 in the Second World War can only be a metaphorical comparison because it involved the full might of the German 6th Army against the Soviet Union’s Red Army in the most brutal of campaigns for the city. There were more than 750,000 Soviet and 400,000 German military casualties and 40,000 civilian deaths before the 6th army commander surrendered. The scale of the battle, the most horrific example of urban combat in history, is not going to be repeated in Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million. However, all Ukrainian males of potentially fighting age have been urged by the Kyiv government to take up arms and confront the Russian troops. Could this lead to a citizens’ resistance capable of spoiling Vladimir Putin’s ambition to control the city and the rest of the country? Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have had eight years’ experience of fighting Russian separatists, backed by “little green men” Spetsnaz special forces sent by Moscow to eastern Ukraine. They have learned tactics and irregular-force skills which could be passed on to a citizens’ army. There are already more than 150 territorial defence battalions which were established to cover the whole country. While they are not best-equipped or manned, they, too, could be used to stir up an armed resistance. In July last year Ukraine passed a law called the foundations of national resistance which provides a legal framework for a nationwide resistance campaign. This was aimed at avoiding potentially the worst scenario which would be a guerrilla war involving thousands of enthusiastic patriots taking up arms without any form of controlled or organised structure.

Putin has made the biggest mistake of his life

Vladimir Putin comes across as a leader who knows his mind, knows his onions and cares not a lickspittle about any other country in the world other than Mother Russia and its lost empire. But right now, after the second day of his invasion of Ukraine, he must for the first time be worried sick. Has he made the worst strategic decision of his life? The invasion is not going as rapidly or as smoothly as he had hoped. Resistance in Kyiv is pretty robust and looks like getting even more so after the ex-comedian Ukrainian president announced every man, woman and child can go to the armoury to pick up a rifle. When the Russian troops arrive en masse in the capital, they are going to get a bloody nose. And the whole world except for idiots like Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua has condemned him. Articles are appearing everywhere saying Putin is a madman. Most people looking and listening to his speeches will agree. He has become psychologically unsound to put it mildly. He is so obsessed with the Soviet Empire and its past greatness that he has lost all sense of reality. Let us hope and dream that the invasion will fail, the Russian soldiers will demand to go home, the people of Russia will rebel, and Putin's leadership days will be over. Fingers crossed.

Russian firepower unleashed

Russia unleashed the full panoply of combat power in its multi-pronged attack on Ukraine. Fighter aircraft, land-attack cruise missiles, medium-range ballistic missiles and long-range artillery were all deployed to hit Ukrainian military and government targets. It was Moscow’s version of the American shock-and-awe offensive against Iraq in 2003, with all the Russian armed services involved in the multiple strikes that began at 5am local time. Many of the initial attacks came from five Kilo-class Russian navy submarines operating in the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean. The submarines are armed with land-attack 3M14 Kalibr cruise missiles, similar to the US Tomahawks. Fitted with a 1,000lb high explosive warhead, the Kalibr has a range of up to 1,500 miles. In service with the Russian navy since 2015, Kalibr cruise missiles were first fired in anger the same year against Isis targets in Syria, and again in 2017. They were launched from a submarine in 2015 and from a frigate in 2017. One of the submarines that launched cruise missiles at targets in Odessa, the Black Sea port and other military sites is believed to have been the diesel-electric powered Rostov-on-Don, the same one involved in the 2015 attack in Syria. The cruise missiles were fired in concert with massed arrays of Russian artillery that had advanced from the Ukrainian border in Western Russia, and with mobile Iskander short-range ballistic-missiles operating from Belarus. The most deadly artillery in the Russian military is the Koalitsiya-SV self-propelled howitzer. It’s fitted with a 152mm gun which has a rate of fire of more than ten rounds per minute and has a maximum range of about 44 miles. The 9K720 Iskander ballistic missile, known by Nato as the SS-26 Stone, has a range of up to 310 miles and carries a payload of between 480 kilos and 700 kilos. The weapon system can also fire cruise missiles. In addition to T-72 and T-90 tanks, the Russian military are also believed to have deployed a special urban warfare armoured vehicle called the BMPT-72 “Terminator”. It’s a heavily armed tracked vehicle armed with cannon, machineguns, automatic grenade launchers and Ataka guided missiles. In addition to their most advanced fighter aircraft, some of Russia’s bomber fleet, including Tu22M3 Backfires, Tu-95 Bears and Tu-160 Blackjacks may also have played a role in the initial attacks, firing stand-off missiles from beyond the range of Ukrainian air defences. The troops involved in the invasion plan include Russian naval infantry (the equivalent of the US Marine Corps) who are on 11 amphibious landing ships in the Black Sea. They could land a force of up to 4,000 troops, plus armoured vehicles, to seize Odessa.

How can Ukraine defend itself?

Ukraine’s 150,000 troops have their best chance of defending against a Russian invasion with “shoot-and-skoot” weapons provided by the US and thousands of missile launchers delivered by Britain. In some cases Ukrainian soldiers have had only a few weeks of training on the weapon systems to get ready for a conflict to save their country from occupation. Russia has all the capabilities to hit Ukraine hard with ballistic-missiles, long-range artillery and ground-attack aircraft with stand-off weapons, a war waged initially from a distance. The Ukrainian military, by comparison, will be relying more on shorter range, urban warfare systems to try and prevent the Russians from seizing cities in the Donbass region and elsewhere in the country. It would be an unequal fight. But the thousands of anti-tank missiles now in their hands courtesy of the US and Britain could make the difference between a rapid victory by Russian forces and a much longer-term campaign in which both sides would suffer thousands of casualties. The key weapon is the American Javelin anti-tank missile because it’s simple to operate and once fired the guided rocket will home in on the target by its own. It’s a fire-and-forget weapon or “shoot-and-skoot”, allowing the soldier to press the trigger and then seek immediate cover to avoid the counter-strike. Javelin which has a maximum range of 1.5 miles was used in Afghanistan and Iraq in more than 5,000 combat engagements. The weapon provided by Britain, the NLAW anti-tank system, is much shorter range, effective between 20 and 800 metres (65ft and 2624ft), but can be fired from inside buildings and can target tanks or armoured vehicles from close quarters. The missile can cover 400 metres (1,312ft) in under two seconds. If a Russian invasion spreads throughout Ukraine, it is expected that the ensuing conflict will be largely focused on high-intensity combat operations in an urban environment. The Javelin and NLAW weapons would play a crucial role in countering Russia’s heaviest and most advanced tanks. The Russian armoured vehicles could include the BMPT-72 “Terminator” armoured fighting vehicle which only came into service last year. Social media videos have shown the huge vehicles being transported by rail to the Ukraine border. It is armed with guided missiles, a cannon, a machinegun and automatic grenade launchers, and is suitable for backing up tanks in close-range urban warfare. The Ukrainian military also have the combat-proven Bayraktar TB2 armed drone supplied by Turkey, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles sent by Latvia and Lithuania, Saxon armoured vehicles from Britain and sniper rifles, night vision and radio equipment and tons of ammunition from the US.

Putin is playing a clever divide and rule game

Instead of sending all 190,000 Russian troops into Ukraine in an all-out invasion to take over the whole country, Vladimir Putin has been far trickier. A full invasion would be easier for the West to react to because they could then pile on the toughest sanctions ever all in one go. But, no, Putin decided to do it more slowly, starting off with sending troops and tanks as "peacekeepers" into the two now-Moscow-recognised "independent states" of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. It wrong-footed the West. In Washington Biden and other officials didn't describe it as an invasion, although one National Security Council official did use the "I" word. But basically the sanctions being promised are related to the sending of troops to eastern Ukraine not because of a Putin-ordered invasion. We don't yet know how far Putin will go but unless a large chunk of the 190,000 troops along three sections of Ukraine's borders are sent home in the next few days, the invasion, including occupying the capital Kyiv, will still go ahead. But at Putin's timing. He will wait to see how the West settles down to his "peacekeeping" mission for a few weeks or longer before deploying more troops into other parts of Ukraine. This could go on for months. Putin is nothing if not an arch strategist. If he can continue to wrong-foot Biden and co, he will do so and will take great satisfaction in doing so and hope that he can create divisions between the US and the European members of the Nato alliance.