When Napoleon said “the moral is to the physical as ten is to one,” he meant that better weapons and greater numbers are no substitute for a soldier’s willingness to risk death for his cause. As the war in Ukraine enters its second week, we see growing indications that low morale and an unwillingness to fight are hindering Russian offensive operations.

Under the headline, “It’s a Putiny!” London’s Sun reports that a Russian amphibious operation to capture Odessa was stymied by naval infantry troops who began a sit-down strike and refused to board their landing craft.

Newsweek is reporting on numerous social media video clips that show Russian armored vehicles in pristine condition abandoned by their crews.

And in a psychological operations coup, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry is telephoning Russian mothers to let them know their sons are now prisoners of war. London’s Times reports that the Ukrainians are offering safe passage for these mothers to collect their sons and take them home. 

Imagine the corrosive impact on Russian national morale as this news percolates through the social media grapevine. 

Chernobyl redux?

One of the Russian armored columns invading Ukraine from Crimea has been headed north toward the Kakhovka Reservoir, a seven-mile-wide artificial lake created by a hydroelectric dam built across the Dnieper River. In the beginning, this was something of an enigma because there’s no way Russian armor could cross such a large body of water.

It turns out there’s method to President Putin’s madness. The object of the Russian exercise was the capture of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, situated on the banks of the reservoir at Enerhodar. 

The strategic rationale for this Russian attack is patently obvious. By seizing control of Ukraine’s primary source of electric power, the hope is to force the Zelensky government to capitulate. 

If a firefight raging just outside the gates of a 5,700-megawatt nuclear power station is enough to make you nervous, you have good cause. Reuters reports that shelling by Russian artillery ignited a blaze — later extinguished — in one of the nuclear plant’s out-buildings. 

Russian logistical woes

There’s an adage among military officers that amateurs talk strategy while professionals talk logistics. The Russian armored columns that are stuck north of Kiev may be immobilized by growing supply problems.

The spring thaw has hit Ukraine, transforming its fertile fields into a morass of mud. While tanks and other tracked vehicles can move cross-country through muddy terrain quite well, the trucks carrying vital supplies of fuel, food, and ammunition are restricted to road travel. 

The traffic jams that have ensued create a target-rich environment for Ukrainian air and artillery strikes and even guerilla attacks. A report in the Jerusalem Post relates how the Ukrainian defense minister, Olenski Resnikov, has called for WWII-style partisan attacks on Russian supply lines. 

“Do not touch the tanks,”  Mr. Resnikov urged in a speech Wednesday night. “Destroy the rear columns … if the enemy is left without fuel, ammunition, food, engineering, and repair support, he will be helpless.”

Each new day of Russian immobility is another day in which the Ukrainians grow stronger. Another day in which new supplies of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles reach the hands of Ukrainian soldiers. Another day in which Russian morale is further sapped by supply problems and anti-war sentiment in the ranks and on the home front. 

Mr. Putin’s shock and awe campaign has degenerated into a dismal display of military incompetence.

End game

So how is this likely to end? 

We already see signs of nervousness among Mr. Putin’s fellow kleptocrats of Russia’s oligarch class. A new round of economic sanctions triggered by yet more brutal behavior by Russian troops in Ukraine might send Mr. Putin’s only allies scurrying for the exits. 

If forced to choose between their villas on the Côte d’Azur and Mr. Putin, the robber barons of Russia will likely opt to save their lives, their fortunes, and their unsacred dishonor. According to the Jerusalem Post, Russian oligarch Alex Konanykhin has placed a $1 million bounty on Mr. Putin’s head, calling on military officers to arrest him “as a war criminal.”

I suspect we’ll see more of this.