The War in Ukraine

Captain Bill Toti, USN (Ret)

Co-Host, “The Unauthorized History of the Pacific War” Podcast

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My Bona Fides

• 26 years active duty Navy– Pentagon planner
• 15 years industry – significant business in Ukraine multiple companies
• Ukrainian employees
• Substantial time in Ukraine, mostly Kiev & Odessa
• Met with President Petro Poroshenko 2016 on security matters
• Still have contacts in country
• After the Russian invasion, I did a ~2-hour podcast episode on this issue, should you be interested in more

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Ukraine Early History

• 1917: War of independence against the tsar of Russia (pre-dates the Russian Revolution)
• 1917–1923: Russian Revolution
• 1922: Ukraine annexed by USSR
• 1932 – 1933: Holodomor famine, causing the deaths of millions of Ukrainians and deeply impacting Ukrainian-Russian relations
• 1940s – Stalin “encourages” population redistribution within the USSR, many ethnic Russians migrate to Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltics, etc.

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Soviet Union’s access to Seaports

Ukraine Modern History - 1

• 1990: The “Revolution of Granite,” first major anti-Soviet protest
• 1991: Ukrainian independence
• 1994: Ukraine agrees to give up its nuclear weapons under the tripartite Budapest Memorandum and conform to the Non-proliferation Treaty
• In return, Clinton provides “security assurances” to protect from Russian invasion
• 2004: protests against alleged election fraud leads to the election of a pro-European president

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Ukraine Modern History - 2

• 2010: pro-Russian president elected in Ukraine, reversing many reforms.
• 2014: The Euromaidan protests erupted in response to his violent suppression of dissent, ultimately resulting in his ousting and exile
• Obama ignores security assurances of Budapest Memorandum, essentially giving Russia the green light to invade in response to the protests
• 2014: Russia’s invasion of Crimea
• A strong desire for closer ties with the EU emerges among younger Ukrainians, posing a challenge to Putin

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Why Did Russia Invade?

• 2008 invasion of Georgia – no reaction from US or NATO
• Prevent Ukraine from joining NATO
• Resurgent Russian hegemony
• Putin ego
• Stabilize access to Crimean seaports
• Stabilize population losses

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Why is Russia losing?

• 2-year conscripts – many sent to front lines after minimal training
• We train our military longer than Russian conscripts are in uniform
• Russian combat systems significantly worse than US intel estimates
• Ukraine has been augmented with better NATO/US systems
• Ukraine is a democracy - defending their homeland– they care about the outcome
• Russia is an autocracy – the people didn’t get a vote, they are merely fodder for the machine and don’t care about the outcome
• Estimates of Russian casualties (killed & wounded) range from 400,000 to 728,000 (“The Economist”)

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Footnote – My Involvement

• 2014—2016, led two projects:
• Improve Ukrainian border security, and
• Make Ukraine “NATO-ready”
• US administration more concerned with Ukrainian corruption than actual defense
• Lesson
• Stabilize security first
• Build democracy later

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Today’s update

• 11,000-12,000 North Koreans in Kursk Oblast
• Russian small drones terrorizing civilians with grenades
• Now engaged on the front lines mixed with Russian troops
• More will be coming
• Echoes of the start of World War I, with the same kind of stalemate
• Russia & NK vs Ukraine, Iran & Lebanon vs Israel, China vs Taiwan & Philippines
• This morning’s news

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Current State – After 2 years

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Israel – Hamas Tunnels

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Roi Levy

The Most Important Lessons

• What the United States does (or does not do) has massive impact in world stability
• When the United States fails to keep its commitments, global instability reigns
• We sometimes cause instability even when we don’t always directly suffer from it
• We always indirectly suffer from it
• There is a real risk we will eventually suffer directly
• The probability of that happening may be low…
• But consequences would be catastrophic

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