“Russia didn’t think it through.” A surprising prediction about aggression in Ukraine came from China

“Russia’s defeat in Ukraine is inevitable,” says Chinese expert on Russia Feng Yujun from Peking University. According to the professor, four factors play an important role in making the war doomed to failure for Vladimir Putin’s regime.

The first circumstance, according to leading Chinese Russologist Feng, is the extraordinary level of resistance and national unity displayed by Ukrainians. Secondly, it concerns the international support of Kyiv, which, according to the academician, remains strong despite the fact that President Volodymyr Zelenskyi considers it insufficient.

“A third factor is the nature of modern warfare, which combines technical equipment with a system of command, communications and intelligence. One of the reasons why Russia is having problems in this war is that it has not yet recovered from the dramatic deindustrialization it suffered after the collapse of the Soviet union,” Feng explained in The Economist magazine.

Finally, the lack of information among Kremlin officials at the highest levels is influencing the war. “When it comes to decision-making, Putin is trapped in an ‘information cocoon’ thanks to his long time in power. The Russian president and his national security team do not have access to accurate intelligence. Their Ukrainian counterparts are more flexible and efficient,” the professor described.

According to Feng, it is the factors mentioned above that will mean the inevitable defeat of Russia. “Over time, they will be forced to withdraw from all occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea. Russia’s nuclear capacity is no guarantee of success,” he said.

“Although the war was extremely costly for Ukraine, the strength and unity of its resistance shattered the myth that Russia is militarily invincible. Ukraine can still rise from the ashes. When the war is over, it can look forward to the possibility of joining the European Union and NATO,” Feng added.

The Beijing academic also mentioned in the article that Moscow did not think through some of the consequences of the war and thus weakened its position in Europe. “Russia has inadvertently revived NATO, which has strengthened the alliance’s presence in Eastern Europe, whose membership has expanded to include Sweden and Finland. Meanwhile, most of NATO’s 32 member states have increased their defense budgets since the start of the war,” he said.

According to the professor, the war in Ukraine also affected relations between China and Russia. Although Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently visited Beijing to meet with his Chinese counterpart, according to Feng, it was more of a “diplomatic effort by Russia to show that it is not alone”.

Feng’s statement is considered relatively surprising by foreign media, as it contradicts China’s long-standing position towards Russia. The communist regime outwardly presents itself as neutral, but it supports Moscow by, for example, banning criticism of Russia on Chinese social networks. There has also been long-standing speculation that the world’s most populous country supplies the Kremlin with weapons.