We know with certainty what Putin and the Russians will do to Ukraine from here on out as we have the exemplar of Grozny during the First and Second Chechen Wars.

Grozny was named the “most destroyed city in the world” after the bloodthirsty Russian army finished with it the second time around.

Chechnya is a small country with slightly more than 1MM people. Ukraine has 44MM people.

The First Battle of Grozny

Grozny, capital of Chechnya, had been savaged by the Russians under Russian President Boris Yeltsin during the First Chechen War when the Russians conducted a siege from December 1994 until March 1995. This was the beginning of the First Chechen War.

The Chechens were a tough bunch and held out for a long time being rewarded with the largest aerial, missile, and artillery bombardment since World War II.

The Chechens, similar to Ukraine, spoke Russian and many of their citizens served in the Russian army. They were fierce fighters, and both nations confusingly wore Soviet style uniforms.

When the Russians attacked initially, the Chechens enjoyed substantial success with combined infantry and tank hunter-killer teams. The Russians then devolved into vicious house-to-house combat.

The Russian Defense Minister had boasted he could seize Grozny in two hours with one airborne regiment. He went on to vow he would kill more than 60% of the defenders with heavy artillery and rockets and demoralize the balance and waltz in to victory.

That did not happen.

The Russian Attack

The Russian attack — four simultaneous axis of advance — was poorly planned, the troops were incompetent, the coordination of infantry, artillery, armor, and air was substandard, and there were many deaths due to friendly fire. The Russians had complete air supremacy and used it ineffectively.

The Chechens employed classic city fighting technique by firing down on Russian armor from above and killing the first and last tank in a column thereby rendering the armor immobile and killing them off. The Russian tactics were not competent and they could not elevate their tank guns sufficiently to strike the third floors of neighboring buildings.

In one particular skirmish near the train station, approximately 400 Chechens killed more than 780 Russians and captured more than 75 POWs leaving only 160 Russian soldiers alive. The Russian brigade commander was also killed. From an equipment perspective, the brigade lost 20/26 tanks and 102/120 armored personnel carriers in the 60 hour battle.

In retaliation for their defeat, the Russians systematically destroyed Grozny with artillery, rockets, tank fire using white phosphorous rounds (war crime) and thermobaric bombs (war crime) delivered by Shmel rockets. Russian special forces infiltrated snipers. The Chechens killed a number of senior Russian officers.

These brutal tactics were successful and the Chechens abandoned parts of Grozny taking to the mountains wherefrom they waged a guerilla war for years.

There were a number of faux ceasefires violated by the Russians who continued to shell Grozny. By this time casualties were as many as 4,000 Russian KIA and a thousand MIA. It is impossible to get a good handle on casualties because of the massive destruction.

Chechen military and civilian casualties were almost 30,000 — virtually all ethnic Russians.

The Second Battle of Grozny

The Second Chechen War — the hot phase started in October 1999 — was under Putin’s leadership while the First Chechen War was under Yeltsin’s. The tactics were similar except Putin went ugly immediately.

Putin, newly in command of Russia, declared the government of Chechnya and its President Aslan Maskhadov to be “illegitimate.” The Russians invaded northern Chechnya, rolling country excellent for tanks.

Knowing how fierce the Chechens and their warlords were, Putin’s army advanced cautiously destroying everything before them using artillery. This is reminiscent of the Russian tactics in Ukraine.

Of 800,000 Chechen civilians, more than 350,000 immediately fled as Russian forces closed in on Grozny, the Chechens knowing they had seen this movie before.

The Russians made no bones about their intention to target civilians shooting a Scud short-range ballistic missile into the Grozny market and killing 140 children, women, and men leaving hundreds more wounded. Putin justified this action saying it was an arms bazaar. This is a man with no compunctions to slaughter children.

In early December 1999, the Russians surrounded Grozny and the siege began in earnest. The Russians flattened Grozny leading the United Nations to call Grozny the most destroyed city on Earth.

What does this suggest for Ukraine?

Putin is still the leader of Russia some 23 years later. Russian doctrine and tactics are unchanged. Russian equipment is slightly superior to the gear of that time. The Russian army is not more competent. They  employ brute force and only brute force.

The outcome will be the same:

 1. Putin will surround every Ukrainian city of any size, attack it ruthlessly using missiles, rockets, artillery, bombs, and tanks. He will reduce the Ukrainian cities to rubble as he did in Grozny. This is already underway and has been for 11 days.

 2. The Russian army will kill civilians — children, women, old persons — and will rape women. This is already underway.

 3. The Ukrainians will fight valiantly with their limited means. They will hold Kyiv for two months, but then under dint of Russian firepower, white phosphorous, and thermobaric bombs, they will succumb to death and starvation.

 4. The Russians will gloat as to their military prowess though they have an inferior army. The Ukrainians will not sell their lives cheaply and there will be massive Russian casualties. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians will also be killed.

 5. The Russians will find and kill the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. They will kill the constitutional successor.

 6. The Russians will install a puppet government and then annex Ukraine as part of Russia saying the democracy that existed was populated by “illegal squatters” and that Ukraine was always part of Russia.

 7. The Ukrainians — having tasted freedom for 30 years — will begin a guerilla war and the Russians will struggle to subdue them even with extreme violence.

 8. More than 10,000,000 Ukrainians will seek refuge in the west and the west, having shirked its duty to defend Ukraine under the Budapest Agreement, will take the refugees in because they caused this mess.

Beyond that, it is impossible to say.

Bottom line it, Big Red Car

I predict the sanctions will eventually hare-lip Russia and its economy will collapse. The Ruble will be toilet paper. This will make Putin dangerous. The entire world will hate him as will Russia except for the oligarchs and strong men (Putin’s thug companions).

We will recognize Russia is an uncivilized, medieval, Dark Ages country 25% smaller than Italy — gross domestic product.

What is unknown is whether this leads to World War III. I think it will.

As long as we are unable to marshal the world’s power to defeat evil, then we will face our end on our knees.

Not very optimistic. I am sorry.

The inability to stop trading with our mortal enemy in a time like this is all we need to know. We are funding the Russian war machine and that is fine with the morons who pretend to lead us.

As Vladimir Ilyich Lenin said, “The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”