If Russian forces try to take new territory in Ukraine, they will face an army that is far smaller and less well equipped than their own but hardened by eight years of fighting.
Nearly a decade of war has also left Ukraine with nearly half a million combat-experienced veterans, many now preparing to fight again, officially or unofficially.
That combination, and the sheer size of Ukrainian territory, means that even if Russia can outgun Ukrainian forces on a conventional battlefield, any military clash could lead to a protracted and bloody partisan conflict.
“The Russian army has better weapons and technical equipment than us, so we may lose battles or campaigns. But they can never win the country if the Ukrainian people are motivated,” said Serhiy Kryvonos, a retired special forces general and former deputy secretary of the national security and defence council.
Kryvonos is travelling the country speaking to veterans and organising weapons training to prepare for a popular uprising should Russia invade. “Look at the experience of Afghanistan. It could not be held by the Soviet Union, by the USA, by the United Kingdom,” he said. “They could not beat the Taliban because they were well motivated. Their strongest weapon was their partisans, civilians by day, then at night they took up weapons to shoot or bury a bomb in the road.”
Ukraine’s government, after months of calling for calm, this week shifted its public position and began preparing the country for war. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced he was calling up a first group of reservists and on Tuesday the national security council asked parliament to bring in a state of emergency nationwide.
Many of those called up had been preparing for weeks, including Roman Nabozhniak, who has made detailed plans for his brownie business to operate without him. Vladimir Putin had brought the country together in the crisis, he said.
“Among my friends and peers, there are no arguments now between those who supported Zelenskiy and those who supported [former president Petro] Poroshenko, we have set them aside. Now we have to back this government with one voice.
“Unity is our most powerful weapon. Russia wants us to have lots of internal arguments they can exploit.”
Putin’s years of aggressive policy have not only shaped and sharpened national identity – politicians in Kyiv sometimes joke he is a founder of modern Ukraine – but also helped hone the military he may now order Russian soldiers to fight.
In 2014, when Russia seized Crimea and Russia-backed forces took control of the east, the Ukrainian army was in such degraded form that soldiers weren’t even getting food. In the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, discipline had frayed, weapons systems had gone without maintenance for decades, and hardly any of Ukraine’s soldiers had seen combat.
“The Ukrainian military in 2014 and the Ukrainian military now are two entirely different things, although without [that army] we wouldn’t have a country at all,” said Taras Chmut, a veteran and military analyst with Come Back Alive, an NGO in Kyiv that supports frontline fighters with equipment and training.
“We had a big army, with lots of equipment, but it was old and wasn’t in good condition. Food wasn’t getting to the frontline; people were fighting in jeans,” he said. “Even basic supplies weren’t reaching soldiers, from body armour to first aid kits and communications equipment.”
Today, logistics and training have been improved, and the army has expanded by about 100,000 soldiers, to number about 260,000. Chmut estimates that a total mobilisation including veterans and security forces could put more than 1 million Ukrainians in arms.
But when it comes to hardware, Ukraine is still extremely vulnerable. It has a long coastline but, after Russia seized Crimea and its ports, almost no naval capacity. It has no missile defence system, and anti-aircraft defence systems are mostly Russian-made, outdated, and impossible for Ukraine to repair as it cannot get parts.
If Russia gains control of the skies over Ukraine, Chmut says he fears civilian slaughter like that seen in parts of Syria, where Russian weapons were used in rebel-held areas.
“We are trying to highlight that we need to work on strengthening our air force,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how many people are ready to fight: if the enemy control the airspace, it could be like in Syria, bombing of towns and cities with [a] great number of deaths among civilians.”
Kryvonos was concerned that civilians could be targeted with punitive measures, even if they were not targeted by weapons. “They don’t even need to open fire. You can cut off Kyiv’s electricity outside the city,” he said. “The larger the city, the easier to create panic and bring it to its knees. If you cut off power it will become a nightmare in a few days, with no water and no heat.”
He said governments had not done enough to warn civilians to prepare supplies of food and water, or even put up signs to bomb shelters. That is particularly worrying because in addition to Russia’s superior force of arms in conventional airspace, it could unleash devastating cyberattacks that would make it harder for Ukrainians to access information as any invasion unfolds.
While the government is not moving fast enough for him and many other Ukrainians, people are making their own plans and preparations for the resistance that Chmut says would follow a Russian attack
“If it comes to an invasion, it will be total war like in 1939. The whole country will be fighting back, there will be a massive resistance. The west should know there will be a large number of refugees, too, maybe 5 to 10 million.”
Those determined to fight include Oleg Sentsov, a film director from Crimea who became a national hero after he was detained in his home city in 2014 and convicted of terrorism in a Russian military court. Human rights groups denounced it as a show trial.
He spent five years in Russian jails, including in Siberia where the cold severely damaged his health, before he was released in a prisoner swap in 2019. He says he is ready to fight, even as his latest film, Rhino, is feted at festivals.
“I will be in uniform. I have some military training and I know how to act in war,” he said in an interview at a central Kyiv cafe, hours before Putin announced his plans to recognise breakaway regions of Ukraine. “The main thing I learned in this life is not to be afraid. In such a difficult time, I will not be the person running from my country.”
