Can Ukraine Create Its Own “Winter War Miracle”?

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. As we all know, its success has not been what President Vladimir Putin and his generals had hoped for.

Finnish news media MTV3 published a news report according to which the intelligence service GCHQ has estimated that nearly half a million Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine during the past four-plus years, or roughly 50 months. This means that the Russians have lost an average of nearly 9,800 soldiers per month.

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In Finland, the miracle of the Winter War is still remembered. That war lasted about 3.5 months, and therefore it is interesting to compare Russian losses in Ukraine with the casualties suffered by the Red Army during the winter of 1939–40.

According to Russian sources cited by Wikipedia, either 126,875 or 167,976 Red Army soldiers were killed or went missing during that conflict. These figures amount to approximately 36,000 or 48,000 killed or missing per month.

From this, one may conclude that the Finns who resolutely defended themselves during the Winter War were about 3.6 or 4.8 times more effective than present-day Ukrainians in their fight against an invasion directed from Moscow. This is despite the fact that Ukrainians in the current war have killed roughly 2.5 times as many Russian soldiers as they themselves have lost.

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Of course, my text above may be criticized on the grounds that the Winter War was exceptional in rallying almost all Finns unanimously to defend our country. Therefore, it is useful to calculate the same comparison figures for the Continuation War, that is, the years 1941–44.

According to Wikipedia, during those 39 months approximately 63,204 Finnish soldiers and 201,000 Russian soldiers were killed. After doing the calculations, we see that the Finns managed to kill “only” a little over 5,000 Red Army soldiers per month. The explanation is probably the long trench warfare phase associated with that war, during which the fighting consisted mainly of minor skirmishes.

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Therefore, it is also useful to calculate comparison figures for present-day Ukrainians as well as for the Finns of the Winter War and the Continuation War by dividing the scale of their own losses by the number of dead Russian/Red Army soldiers. For this, we first need the figures for their own casualties: according to Wikipedia articles, these were just under 200,000 in Ukraine, about 26,000 in the Winter War, and slightly over 63,000 in the Continuation War.

When we divide the Muscovites’ casualty figures by those of the Ukrainians or Finns, we arrive at the following comparison ratios. In the war in Ukraine, about 2.5 Russians have died for every fallen Ukrainian. In the Winter War, by contrast, about 5–6.5 Red Army soldiers were killed or went missing for every dead Finn, while in the Continuation War the figure was about 3.2.

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From these figures we can see that the Winter War differs fundamentally from the other two wars under discussion. This suggests that the spirit of the Winter War not only encouraged Finnish soldiers to engage in determined resistance, but also significantly increased their effectiveness compared with the less motivated Finnish army of the Continuation War.

Therefore, it is worth asking — assuming that Russians and Ukrainians are, as fighters, roughly equal to begin with — whether the substantially higher casualties suffered by Putin’s army in the current war can be explained by the low motivation level of its soldiers. And is this phenomenon creating a Ukrainian equivalent of the spirit and miracle of the Winter War: a “spirit of the special military operation” and a “miracle of the special military operation”?

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Russia’s Spring Offensive: Gains Unclear, Losses Undeniable
Concern About the Future Is Growing in Russia
The Outbreak of the Continuation War Between Finland and the Soviet Union