September 13, 2024: Russia‘s ill-conceived and poorly managed invasion of Ukraine turned out to be a major disaster for the Russian military and economy. Russian leader Vladimir Putin took credit for the early 2022 invasion but is less willing to accept responsibility for Russian failures. Russian losses have been enormous in terms of personnel and equipment. Over half a million Russian soldiers were killed or seriously wounded. Russian medical care for wounded soldiers was never as good as Western nations and in Ukraine the Russian medical services gradually disappeared completely. In several months this year Russia has lost over a thousand killed in action a day. That means in the last few months Russia has been losing over 30,000 troops a month.

During the first year of the war Russia lost most of its tank force along with light armored vehicles and supply vehicles as well. The Ukrainians knew the Russians never had enough vehicles to keep front line troops supplied with munitions, food, fuel and replacements. During World War II Russia received enormous quantities of supplies, items they were chronically short of like trucks, high octane fuel and reliable communication wire for combat zone use. Between 1941 and 1945 the U.S. sent Russia goods worth $700 billion in 2024 dollars. This was seventeen percent of what the Americans spent on their war effort against Germany and Japan.

Towards the end of World War II Russian leader Josef Stalin declared that Russia might have been defeated without lend-lease. Many other Russians believed they definitely would have lost without the American aid. The Germans could have won by 1944, just in time to see Berlin hit with an American nuclear bomb. The U.S. nuclear weapons program was started before the U.S. entered the war in late 1941, for use against Nazi Germany. An ultra long-range bomber, the 186 ton B-36, was developed during the war in case the Germans conquered Britain. This would have forced the U.S. to launch air strikes on Germany from the North Americans northeast coast. By 1944 it was clear that the B-36 would carry nuclear bombs and that successive successful strikes on Berlin could turn the apparent German victory into a defeat. All this assumed the war would last until the late 1940s.

Germany was defeated by conventional means and surrendered in May 1945, halting the rush to complete the B-36 Berlin Bomber. Two atomic bombs were used against Japanese cities to force the recalcitrant Japanese to surrender in September 1945. The smaller 61 ton B-29 was able to reach Japanese cities from islands recently conquered by American amphibious forces. The B-29s had been active since 1943 but needed bases closer to Japan to reach their targets. The first B-29 raids on Japan were launched in June 1944 from Chinese bases. The B-29s and their supplies were flown in from India at great expense. By October 1944 B-29s began attacking Japanese bases near the home islands from Pacific island bases in November 1944. It was later revealed that the U.S. had only managed to build three nuclear bombs by 1945. One was used for a successful July 16, 1945, test while the other two were used against Japan.

The American use of atomic bombs unnerved the Russians, who, thanks to their spies in the United States, created their own nuclear bomb and tested it in August 1949. Two years earlier the Cold War between Russia and the United States began and did not end until the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union due to its inefficient socialist economy and inability to keep up with the economic and technological advances in the west, especially the United States.

Despite the 25 million Russians killed during World War II and the crushing poverty and dictatorial rule after World War II, many Russians still yearned for a restoration of a Russian empire. This movement grew in the 1990s and by 2022 resulted in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The aggression against Ukraine began in 2014 when Russian leader (since 1999) Vladimir Putin ordered the occupation of 27 percent of Ukrainian territory. That led to economic sanctions. Putin’s response was a full-bore invasion of Ukraine in 2022. That turned into a spectacular failure because this time around Ukraine was not caught by surprise, and received the modern equivalent of lend-lease aid while Russia grew weaker because of significantly increased sanctions.

On August 6, 2024, Ukrainian forces invaded a much weakened Russia in the Kursk area. Most Russian forces were tied down fighting in eastern Ukraine. The Russians made progress there but suffered six times as many casualties as the defending Ukrainians. Part of the reason for this was that the morale and quality of their soldiers had declined while Ukrainian troops became more effective. Ukraine was still receiving huge quantities of supplies from NATO nations. This 21st century form of lend-lease was a major factor in Ukraine defeating the Russian invasion and now invading Russia.

Ukraine does not want to conquer Russia, but to force Vladimir Putin to end the war he started in 2022. The dozen or so wealthy Russian businessmen who control most of the economy are pressuring Putin to stop the war on terms that will stop the western sanctions from devastating the Russian economy. It is unclear how much pressure will have to be put on Putin to end the war. Putin is increasingly liable to be replaced, a situation Putin insists could never happen. Russians cannot and will not endure much more of the economic catastrophes Putin’s policies have created. Something has to give and Putin is the weaker party in this dispute. He no longer threatens to use nuclear weapons because he discovered that most Russians, including those controlling the nuclear weapons, did not want to become victims of a nuclear war that would devastate the world economy while Russia suffered most for starting it.

Russia won World War II because of western aid and now Russia is the invader, while Ukraine is winning because of western aid. Internal Russian propaganda pushed the idea that Russia was defending itself from NATO encirclement by invading Ukraine. More Russians are realizing that the greatest threat to Russian survival is Vladimir Putin. The end is near, but the exact date of the war ending is unclear.