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Russia’s war on Ukraine based on flawed logic, Chinese military scholar wrote in article scrubbed from the web
- Russia has chosen a path ‘long forsaken by human civilisation’, military scholar and Sino-Vietnam war veteran Gong Fangbin says
- Gong is among a small but growing number of Chinese intellectuals voicing scepticism about Moscow’s rationale behind invading Ukraine
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Russia’s security rationale for attacking Ukraine was flawed and the aftermath underlines the importance of diplomatic flexibility, a Chinese scholar formerly with Beijing’s top military academy has said.
“I still don’t see how any country would have dared to invade the world’s No 2 military power,” Gong Fangbin, a retired professor of the People’s Liberation Army National Defence University, wrote in a recent online article.
“Russia has shown the world time and again that no one dares touch an inch of its land,” he said, countering Moscow’s argument that it was cornered by the West and Nato into invading Ukraine.
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“What’s the real reason [for Moscow] to attack Ukraine? I think it’s because the Russian leaders have taken the wrong path for rejuvenation.”
Gong argued that the rationale to attack Ukraine over so-called security concerns was flawed. And the dilemma faced by Russia as it took heavy losses on the ground was the result of having chosen a path “long forsaken by human civilisation”, he wrote in his article posted on WeChat last Tuesday.
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The article, however, has since disappeared from the social media platform.
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