Chinese analysts predict Russia's defeat in the war against Ukraine
Professor Feng Yujun names four factors that lead to Russia's inevitable defeat
Russia will be defeated in the war against Ukraine, said Feng Yujun, a professor at Peking University and director of the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies at Fudan University.
Source. This was reported by The Economist.
According to the expert, a former member of the Kremlin's Valdai International Discussion Club, the fiasco will be possible due to four factors.
The first is the high level of resistance and national unity shown by Ukrainians. The second is the international support for Ukraine, which, despite the recent decline, remains significant.
The third factor, Feng Yujun says, is the nature of modern warfare, which depends on a combination of industrial power and command, control, communications and intelligence systems.
According to his observations, Russia is experiencing difficulties in the war against Ukraine, and this may be due to the fact that the country has not yet recovered from the deindustrialisation experienced after the collapse of the USSR.
The last factor is information. According to Feng Yujun, Putin has been trapped in an information cocoon because of his long dictatorship. The Kremlin lacks reliable intelligence, and the system in which the Russian leadership operates lacks an effective mechanism for correcting mistakes, The Economist quotes the expert as saying.
Feng Yujun emphasises that Russia's defeat due to these four factors is inevitable, and Moscow will eventually have to withdraw its troops from all occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea.
Even Russia's nuclear potential does not guarantee its victory, the professor believes. As an example, he cites the withdrawal of US troops, which also have nuclear weapons, from Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan.
The Ukrainian war has become a turning point for Russia, Feng Yujun writes: it has put Putin's regime in wide international isolation and created fertile ground for "various black swans", i.e. for various unpredictable disasters that the Russian authorities have already faced and will continue to face. As examples, he cites the Wagner PMC uprising, ethnic tensions in Russia and the recent terrorist attack in Moscow.
The Ukrainian conflict is also increasingly convincing the former Soviet republics that Russia's imperial ambitions threaten their independence and territorial integrity.
At the same time, the war has made Europe realise the enormous threat that Russia poses to the continent's security and international order. Many European countries have "abandoned their illusions" about Russia and Putin.
The war has forced NATO to increase military spending and deploy more military equipment in eastern Europe. The accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO showed Putin's inability to use the war to prevent the expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance.
Finally, Feng Yujun points out that if the conflict in Ukraine is frozen without "fundamental changes in Russia's political system and ideology", the Kremlin will be able to regain strength and start new wars.
Background. As a reminder, French President Emmanuel Macron said he would ask China to help achieve an "Olympic ceasefire" for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
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