The Ukraine war has been raging for over a year. A military economist believes Russia will be defeated in October – other experts have also expressed their views.
Zurich/Ukraine/Russia – The war in Ukraine is still going on. Both sides have suffered heavy losses. But the military economist Marcus Keupp is convinced that Russia will have lost the war in October. Not only does he expect a counter-offensive from Ukraine with Western tanks from April, he also stated that “the Russians are gradually running out of material and men.”
As he said in an interview with the New Zurich newspaper said, he based his prediction on sources such as the Swedish defense agency FOI or the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) from London. Based on the figures given there for Russian tanks, he claims to have calculated the time of the Russian defeat. For the loss rate, he used the Oryx blog, which he says is “the best source of data on Russian losses” – with pictures and videos from the front lines, the losses would be counted. In his calculations, he came up with a “maximum of 211 days of war” for which the “remaining reserve of 1,055” Russian tanks is still sufficient.
Military economist sure: Russia at the end of its reserves
Keupp works at the ETH Zurich Military Academy, where he trains professional officers for the Swiss army. He is skeptical about Russia’s possible unexpected reserves: “What can the Russians have left? They have the myth of a supposed silver bullet: the Armata T-14 main battle tank, which we haven’t seen on the battlefield to this day,” he explained. And he’s pretty sure that western arms shipments to the Ukraine will play a crucial role in the course of the war, since the Leopard 2 and Challenger 2 tanks could “shoot significantly further than Russian tanks and therefore eliminate them from afar”.
He went on to say that if you add up the “technology boost among the Ukrainians as well as the Russian loss rate and the depleting resources”, then “there is actually no other course conceivable than a Russian defeat.” He reacted to the question about the use of nuclear weapons convinced that this is the Russian President Wladimir Putin only serve as a psychological weapon intended to stir up fear – but he will not use it.
Military economist predicts China will not play a role in Ukraine war
And also China won’t be a big part in Ukraine war play, according to Keupp. After all, transporting arms to Russia is “logistically very difficult,” and Western countries “see these trains immediately on the satellite photos and then impose secondary sanctions on China.” The Chinese government has denied this.
What Keupp cannot rule out is that private armies like the Wagner Group would continue the war without Putin. In this regard, he also said that it is “no coincidence that air defense systems are being installed everywhere in Moscow at the moment. This is the preparation for internal conflicts.” Keupp apparently thought that the operators of the private armies, Russian oligarchs or the military could try to overthrow Putin in such a case.
Russian propaganda also in Europe? Military analyst criticizes Germany
The military economist also criticized Europe and Germany in the interview. Russian propaganda had “seeped in” there, too, and Russian agents were running around everywhere. If the war hadn’t broken out for ten years, Germany would probably no longer have supported the Ukraine – Keupp believes that up until then the country would have been too dependent on Russian money and Russian energy. “It sounds cynical, but luckily this war is happening now,” he said.
When asked whether his forecast for the further course of the war was not rather wishful thinking, the analyst replied that he had “continuously adjusted his assessment to the situation”. Although it was risky – also in Switzerland – to oppose the Russian regime, he can’t stay still.
Forecasts for a Russian defeat in the Ukraine war: expert opinions differ
With such risky predictions, Keupp is also risking his reputation as a scientist. What do other experts say about an end to hostilities and the further course of the war in Ukraine? Opinions differ: some scientists assume that the end of the war is not in sight anytime soon, since Russian society still has too much support for Putin – and because Russia’s president is simply accepting the severe losses suffered by his soldiers. The Bulgarian philosopher and political scientist Ivan Krastev, among others, takes this view, as in a star-February interview is to read. “This war is creating new career opportunities for many people within the country,” he said.
And with a view to the signing of a peace treaty, he assumed: “Parties to the conflict can hardly get beyond a ceasefire. I think that’s the most likely scenario.” That would then be “not real peace, but a stalemate.”
Other experts, on the other hand, share Keupp’s opinion and have no doubts that Putin will lose the Ukraine war. The well-known American political scientist Francis Fukuyama, for example, believes that “Putin’s defeat is at most a matter of time”. The morale of the Ukrainian armed forces is much higher than that of the Russian soldiers, and the delivery of Western main battle tanks to Ukraine is a decisive factor, as is Fukuyama in one Interview with t-online reported. “I don’t think it’s unlikely,” he continued, “that the Ukrainian army will be able to completely liberate at least the southern part of the country by the summer.”
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov himself announced in early March that he saw a real chance for his country of winning the war before the end of the year. “I’m an optimist, I see the situation on the battlefield, I see the development of support and I really see that there is a chance to end this war with our victory this year,” he said at the time. (ale)
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