One year ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin ignored the lessons of military history and labored under the false belief that a conquest of Ukraine would be quick and easy, a matter of taking an airport and rolling armored vehicles into Kyiv to accept its surrender. Today, his invasion of Ukraine has exposed the weakness of Russia’s military and the incompetence of its leadership, and the war grinds on in bloody fashion.
Peter Mansoor is a retired U.S. Army colonel with 26 years of active service as an armor officer, including two combat tours in Iraq. He is currently a professor of military history at The Ohio State University.
