It doesn’t need to any more.
Making war during Rasputitsa
Rasputitsa, or mud season, occurs every spring and autumn in eastern Europe. Spring thaw and autumn rains turn the countryside into nearly impassable mud for about six weeks each. You need to plan offensives such that they either begin right after the mud season, or else that they end just as the mud season begins, because during the period you’re limited to very limited, very defensible paved road network only.
With the climate change upon us the mud season could be just a few weeks away. Should Russia invade today it could only have 2–3 weeks of operations before they grind down to a halt for 6 weeks or so due to a perfectly predictable, seasonal shift in weather. They might also have another 6–8 weeks, but you don’t plan a major offensive operation just before the mud season.
The window of opportunity is essentially closed until May or June, when the ground dries up sufficiently to enable significant operations. Yes, you could still launch limited operations and score tactical success, then hunker down in a defensive posture … and allow your enemy all the time in the world to mobilize, train new units even and secure generous international help. That’s how you lose wars, you don’t plan to take a tiny little bite of the enemy state then wait for the inevitable coutnerattack.
Furthermore, the window of opportunity for the second Russian weapon, gas sales to Europe, is closing down and fast too. Russian gas is invaluable to Europe from about November to March. Yet as soon as spring comes, Europe can make do with domestic production, LNG imports plus pipelines from UK and Norway. Europe can even stockpile gas that way for several months in a year. A Russian attack at the start of winter would cause major problems for Europe in this segment, but not an attack at the end of winter. Within 4–8 weeks (weather depending), Europe will be able to stockpile gas with zero imports from Russia. Europe has enough gas stockpiles to last that long with zero imports from Russia.
In other words, the Russian build-up is going to be on the “lose it” side of “use it, or lose it”.
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