This article in the Times has details on just how Ukraine’s military would stack up against the Russian Army in battle. In Crimea, Ukraine had only token forces. It was Russia’s for the taking. And Ukraine has no realistic way to dislodge them. The Times piece seems contradictory though on how Ukraine would fare in the rest of the country.
They quote Western sources saying that Ukraine’s military could hold its own and even expose deficiencies in the Russian Army which the one-sided fights in the Caucasus did not. But they have Russian sources suggesting Ukraine’s military is hollowed out and saddled with obsolete weaponry.
It’s not terrible surprising that these different sources might offer different outlooks. But it would be nice to get some refereeing of the very different estimations. This article in the Guardian leans a bit more toward the conclusion that the Russians could face a difficult battle to take and even more to hold Ukrainian territory outside the Crimean Peninsula.
If you’ve seen other analyses of this question – particularly, how able the Ukrainian military would be able to resist Russian incursions in the eastern part of the country – please send them along to our tips and comments email at the upper right of the site.
