The Soviet army incurred 13,500 combat deaths during its 10-year war in Afghanistan. This incessant stream of casualties between 1979 and 1989 corroded the legitimacy of the communist regime and was a major factor in the collapse of the USSR.Press reports now indicate that the Russians have suffered roughly 5,000 killed in action during less than a week of fighting in Ukraine. Even if those reports are overblown by a factor of 100 percent and there are 2,500 Russian dead, the implications for President Putin are enormous.There was no internet during the 1980s. No social media. No smartphones in the Afghan desert that would transform everyone into a self-made videographer. Yet not even the coercive brutality of the KGB was able to quash the social unrest throughout Russia generated by news of funerals for 18-year-old conscripts killed in the Afghan war.Vladimir Putin is a thug who has transformed Russia into a brutal kleptocracy. Yet his repressive despotism is amateur-hour stuff by comparison to the mass-murdering depredations of his Bolshevik predecessors.We see thousands of brave Russian citizens prepared to risk imprisonment or worse by taking part in anti-war protests on the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg. This translates into tremendous pressure on Mr. Putin to achieve something he can present as a decisive victory … and quickly.The Ukrainians, though, are disinclined to cooperate with Mr. Putin’s agenda. When the Biden administration offered President Zelensky asylum in America, he responded: “I need ammunition, not a ride.”This “we’ll fight them on the beaches” attitude on the part of the Ukrainians does not portend well for Mr. Putin.To win, the Russians need to decapitate the Ukrainian government. That means capturing Kiev, a major metropolitan center with almost 3 million inhabitants.City fighting is known in military jargon as MOUT — military operations in urban terrain. It is the worst of all worlds for any attacker. In MOUT, assaulting troops are channeled through narrow streets where opportunities for ambush abound.Every rooftop, every window, every ledge, and every corner may be hiding an enemy waiting to kill them. The building-by-building, street-by-street capture of Kiev in 1943 cost the Red Army almost 120,000 casualties. Today’s Ukrainian defenders of that city are equipped with 21st century weapons — including anti-tank guided missiles and attack drones — that are far more lethal than anything available during World War II. If Vladimir Putin insists on pressing home his assault, Kiev will become a meat grinder that chews up and spits out the Russian army.Thus, “Vlad the Invader” faces the mother of all dilemmas: He’s in dire need of a big win, but a victory of that caliber requires a bloody offensive into the heart of Ukraine’s capital city that will turn Russia’s flow of casualties into a torrent.Mr. Putin’s only other alternative is to apply “Grozny rules” to his war in Ukraine.This term derives from a battle during the second Chechen war, when rebels beat back a Russian assault on the city of Grozny. After his army’s initial failure, Mr. Putin decided to solve this tactical problem by ordering the Russian air force to drop thermobaric bombs on the city of 400,000 inhabitants.Thermobaric bombs — also known as fuel-air munitions — are nasty weapons that detonate a cloud of explosive gas close to the ground. They’re particularly effective against bunkers and buildings, and Mr. Putin used them to level Grozny, killing 10,000 civilians in the process.In the wake of this slaughter, the United Nations described Grozny as “the most destroyed city on earth.” The question we must now ask is whether Vladimir Putin will be able to apply Grozny rules to Kiev and Ukraine.I think not. This is not because the Russian despot has mellowed with age, but because modern communications technology will no longer allow such crimes to be committed with impunity in the heart of Europe.The residents of Grozny had neither smartphones nor social media in January 2000. But war crimes that were once possible to commit out of sight and out of mind would now be front-page news in an era when every iPhone owner doubles as a documentary filmmaker.So with Grozny rules off the table, the viable options for Mr. Putin are shrinking fast.The Ukrainians appear determined to defend their sovereignty and their democracy. And each day of continued fighting means a lengthening Russian casualty list that in turn fans the flames of political dissent within Russia.It would be one of the great ironies of history if Mr. Putin’s march on Kiev generates the same outcome as Napoleon’s march on Moscow.One can only hope.Sic semper tyrannis.
