By Mike Eckel*
(RFE/RL) — It was a large-scale Russian military invasion of Ukraine involving around 130,000 military personnel, mainly from the 20th and 8th Combined Arms Armies.
Paratroopers from 76th and 98th Air Assault Divisions crossed the Ukrainian border from the north, headed toward Kharkiv. From the southeast, units including the 7th and 106th Air Assault Divisions moved to seize the entirety of the already partly occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and then move as far west as the outskirts of Dnipro, another major city. Smaller special operations units – spetsnaz – were also deployed.
Railway chokepoints leading to the Ukrainian borders hampered full deployment, but still, the advance units were followed in rolling waves, by multiple regiments with thousands of troops over the next 10 days.
The goal? “Seizure of parts of Ukraine for incorporation into the Russian state.”
The scenario, published more than 18 months ago, was part of a wargame exercise conducted by the Rand Corporation, a U.S. think tank. Though not a comprehensive analysis, it’s a snapshot of Russia’s military capabilities in eastern Ukraine, where in reality, just across the border, as many as 175,000 Russian troops may be gathered in the coming weeks.
And while the Rand report and more recent military analyses have examined Russian operational tactics, far fewer have looked at the other side of the coin: How long can Ukraine’s armed forces hold out against a bigger, more powerful military force like Russia’s?
“Russia will ..
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