Five years into the full-scale invasion, much of Europe still treats Russia as undefeatable. In an interview with Peter Althaus at the German outlet FOCUS online, Sahaidachnyi Security Center Director Lesia Ogryzko explains why a Russian defeat is possible, what asymmetric warfare has already achieved, and what European defence still gets wrong.
For Lesia Ogryzko, the supposed invincibility of Russia has poisoned the Western debate for years, and it rests on a deeper problem: there is still no strategy for dealing with Russia. The goals communicated publicly hold that Ukraine must not lose but almost no one is willing to talk about Ukraine winning.
Yet Ukraine, Lesia Ogryzko notes, holds the full set of asymmetric warfare capabilities. Over the past six months Ukrainian strikes destroyed a third of Russia’s entire oil infrastructure — its largest source of war revenue. Ukraine has also sharply increased drone production and neutralised a significant part of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet, including through Operation Spiderweb.
As Lesia Ogryzko puts it: “A sustainable victory requires a whole range of asymmetric components that ultimately make the war too costly for Russia, and push its leadership to sit down at the negotiating table.”
In the interview, Lesia Ogryzko noted that negotiations only work when both sides are interested in them. On the Russian side, that interest is absent.
Asked which countries lead on defence readiness, Lesia Ogryzko points to those that understand Putin has a “window of opportunity” to exploit Europe’s weakness. These are the countries that grasp that a Russian attack on NATO is possible much earlier than in the 2030s.
She also highlights a shift in how Ukraine is approached on the international stage: from the image of a country that needs support to a state that itself makes a substantial contribution to its partners’ security.
Lesia Ogryzko also notes that the war has shown that quantity still matters: millions of artillery shells, drones, interceptors, and above all enough troops willing to defend their country. As she puts it, “The era of ’boutique armies’ must end.”
The second lesson is speed — the side that adapts faster wins — where Ukraine’s decentralised procurement stands in contrast to Europe still applying peacetime rules.
The third is total defence: the whole of society drawn in, ready to withhold attacks on the energy system, water supply, railways and agriculture.
Finally, Lesia Ogryzko addresses the German audience with a call to stay critical. In her view, Russia has skilfully worked for years to fracture other societies, and the main target of those efforts has always been the human mind. The lesson Ukraine learned the hard way is not to assume a scenario won’t happen simply because it is hard to imagine: in 2021 Ukrainians did not want to believe what became reality in 2022.
Read the full interview with FOCUS online (in German).