Accustom Russia to defeats

Now, in response to the significant blow dealt by Ukraine’s Spider’s Web operation, Russia is trying to spin a counter-narrative. They’ve begun calling this defeat their own “Pearl Harbor” - implying that, just like back then, the U.S. eventually woke up and won.

“They also tried to frame their defeats in Kharkiv and Kherson in the fall of 2022 as part of a “Great Retreat” - drawing parallels with the 1915 withdrawal from Western Ukraine. The narrative goes: after the Brusilov Offensive in 1916, they regained much of the lost territory.”

However, such analogies cut both ways: shortly after, the Russian Empire itself collapsed.

Similarly today, Ukrainian commentators rightly compare the destruction of Russia’s strategic aviation not to Pearl Harbor, but to Tsushima - the crushing defeat of the Russian fleet by Japan during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905.

Back then, the Japanese flag in Ukrainian colors (as shown in the illustration), now widely paraded by Russian propagandists, takes on an ominous meaning - for Russia itself.

In that war, Tsushima wasn’t the only turning point. There was also Mukden - one of the largest land battles before World War I, marking a strategic shift. Before that came the fall of Port Arthur, the Battle of Liaoyang, and, of course, the infamous "We blew up the Koreyets ourselves, and they sank the Varyag for us."

The Japanese won thanks to rapid modernization, better organization and resource mobilization, and a more effectively equipped and trained army and navy.

Ukraine’s leadership now bears the responsibility to address long-standing efficiency issues that have persisted throughout the full-scale invasion.

Ukrainian society, science, industry, military, and intelligence are ready to work to strike Russia again and again - because the way to defeat the Russian giant is to teach it to expect defeat.

To revive the spirit that paralyzed the Russian will at the end of the Russo-Japanese war — the realization: “Force didn’t prevail!”

But for that, we must work in a way that success comes not despite the system, but because of it.

Source

About the author. Rostyslav Pavlenko, Ukrainian politician, political scientist, political strategist, and teacher.

The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the blog authors.