Kyiv, Ukraine – A flight from Moscow to the Pacific port of Vladivostok takes almost nine hours – a domestic flight that covers two-thirds of Russia’s span between the Baltic and the Pacific.
There are about 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) from east to west in Russia, which is 17 million square kilometres (6.6 million square miles), comprising 11 percent of the Earth’s landmass – a bit more than the areas of China, India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia put together.
Even though two-thirds of it is permafrost, the sheer vastness used to save Russia from invasions, be it Napoleon’s Grand Army in 1812 or the 3.8 million soldiers of Nazi Germany and its allies in 1941.
However, as the war with Ukraine, a former province whose Cossack armies once spearheaded czarist conquests, grinds into its fourth year, Russia’s size has become a liability.
“Russia’s territory offers maximal capabilities for strikes,” Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy chief of Ukraine’s general staff of armed forces, told media sarcastically.
Ukrainians – from top brass to civilian volunteers assembling drones in their garages – rewrite the rules of warfare and write off Russia’s obsolete stratagems.
These days, Kyiv proves daily that the border between Russia and Ukraine that stretches almost 2,000 kilometres (1,230 miles) is penetrable in both directions.
It carved out toeholds in two western Russian regions – Kursk and Bryansk – that distract tens of thousands of servicemen.
Meanwhile, Moscow’s Soviet-era air defence systems, designed to intercept NATO missiles, are spread too thin across western Russia and often prove helpless against increasingly sophisticated Ukrainian drone attacks.
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