Francisco Javier Blasco: "Putin studied the invasion of Ukraine badly"

In the latest edition of "De cara al mundo", on Onda Madrid, we had the participation of Francisco Javier Blasco, colonel, defence expert and collaborator of Atalayar, who spoke about the resistance that the Ukrainian people are offering to Russia's invasion. Blasco described the "lessons learned" by Europe that can be found in this armed conflict. He also explained the main problems of command and control that surround the creation of a large European army. 

Of the many good things you have written, we would like to focus on the lessons you have learned. What can we highlight from these lessons learned? 

There are many, as a reader of Atalayar you will have noticed, despite the criticisms of my lengthy writing, but there are so many things to say that I cannot go on and on. Fundamentally, I would say that the mistake made by Putin and his General Staff was the study of the factors that determined the decision taken by the command; I believe that the studies were frankly poorly done and very clueless for such a premeditated invasion. On two fundamental points: the possible resistance capacity of the Ukrainian people and, secondly, they did not study the terrain properly, so they have found a terrain that is making it difficult for them to act. This is because the terrain is too clayey and this complicates the movement of tracked vehicles, which forces Russian logistical chains to be more efficient, and for Russia logistical chains have never been its strong point.

In addition, we have seen Chinese "walkie talkies" in common use, the communications that the Russian military has used are weak and breachable. 

The problem is that traditionally, since World War II, there has been a US interest that Russia's military capability is much more than it really is. I remember when I was a student on the General Staff course, they made us study books by heart where we talked about the conventional enemy, about the penetration and resistance capabilities of the large divisions of all kinds that the Russians had, and that was a lie. This was provided by American intelligence to promote this spirit of threat that was looming over Europe, to keep us on alert, with active armies, buying armaments from the Americans and keeping a lot of American units in Europe. This is still the case, even though Putin realised that the army that remained when the USSR was dissolved, the most important of all armies, was really worthless and obsolete, with old and ineffective weapons, low morale and little training for his troops, and he tried to correct this by intervening in Syria, in the Aleppo region. As a result of this, its capabilities have improved a lot, but they are not as good as they are, which is why these things are happening, such as very old vehicles that are not the most suitable for fighting in that terrain and under the climatic conditions that are occurring.

The Ukrainians are defending themselves very well and are surprising us all, but we assume with somebody's help. 

Indeed, there is a marked tendency to say that we do not want to get involved, but despite this official position I am convinced, and the facts show it, that the United States is providing a lot of material and intelligence to Ukraine. Effective material, with stupendous precision, with a good radius of action and a good destructive capacity, which has come as a great surprise to Putin and the chiefs of staff who thought it would not happen. There is another important factor, which has a decisive influence on morale, and that is that in order to fight in the cities, the most important thing is that the remaining population, the non-combatants, that none of them are harmed, or at least as few as possible. That is why Putin did not let them leave the cities at first because he knows that this population is the one that "hinders" the Ukrainian army, military actions have to be taken care of, the non-combatants have to be protected, fed and transported, and these actions distract the Ukrainian defenders' efforts. Later on, the Ukrainian defence of the civilian population has been giving way a little in this respect, but it is this defence of the civilian population that has been the most exalting for the national spirit. 

Lessons learned by Europe, Germany has made a U-turn and we must prepare ourselves to have a good defence, which Spain has also said is an expense, but not everything is money in defence matters, we must have attitude, availability and know how to accept the sacrifices that this entails in terms of human lives. 

This is one of the greatest challenges we face. After the Vietnam and Afghanistan wars, the Western world has become accustomed to the fact that it does not like to receive coffins, so this is a very big problem. Another big problem is the question of command and control of military units, who is going to command them and how, the right of veto of the contributing countries to have their forces commanded by others without being able to give it up, that is the Achilles heel of the famous European army that we have been after for a long time. Now there is another attempt by Mr Borrell to create another Euro corps which will not have a great capacity, because then there is an interest in what weapons they are going to be equipped with, what the command-and-control system is, what the planning system is, and so on. This is a very serious problem, NATO overcame them with the homogenisation and coordination of procedures, but the European Union is going to have a lot of work to do in this respect, and I see it as very complicated.