What does the Russian war in Ukraine have in common with the Russian invasion of Finland in 1939? What is different? And what can we learn from this about how the current war is going?

In this episode of The Private Citizen, I give an update on the current situation in Ukraine and speculate on how the war might develop from here.


This podcast was recorded with a live audience on my Twitch channel. Details on the time of future recordings can usually be found on my personal website. Recordings of these streams get saved to a YouTube playlist for easy watching on demand after the fact.


Ukraine War Update

The Russian advance in Ukraine seems to have stalled. But how much of this is Ukrainian propaganda? And how much has the war in Ukraine in common with the Finnish Winter War of 1939/1940? Did the Russians actually attempt “Blitzkrieg” tactics with this invasion? Or rather, did they attempt to duplicate what is more accurately termed Preußisch-Deutscher Bewegungskrieg – or “The German Way of War” à la Robert M. Centino? I attempt to analyse the current military situation in Ukraine and what all of these considerations might mean for a possible end of the war.

For my previous analysis of this war, please see Episode 112: What Does Putin Want?.

Current state of the war

Producer Feedback

In response to episode 113, SteveB said:

Well, I’m not a lawyer, and only ever been in Germany on vacation, but I can understand that. It’s not like he said he would go to their house and hurt them, he actually warned them that if they invaded his space he would potentially hurt them. That put the invader in control of whether they would potentially get hurt or not. So if they showed up at his house, they were already pre warned, and it sounds like the event went down as advertised.

But, full disclosure, I actually think that people should have the right to some form of defense of their house. For me, a person’s house is sacred. I’m sure not going to someones house to intimidate them, and won’t actually go in a person’s house unless I know them rather well. And due to previous events, I have a nice camera outside that records, so if an unwanted person does show up, I have a nice evidence video of how the events unfold. I’ve actually had to use that before, an it worked great.

Another producer suggested I look at the similarities and differences in foreign relations between Russia and Germany today and a hundred years ago when the Treaty of Rapallo was signed in 1922, after listening to another podcast talk about it. That sounds like an interesting idea for an episode indeed!

If you have any thoughts on the things discussed in this or previous episodes, please join our forum and compare notes with other producers. You can also contact me in several other, more private ways.

If you are writing in from Russia, you might want to use my whistleblower contact form.

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Thanks and Credits

I’d like to credit everyone who’s helped with any aspect of this production and thus became a part of the show. I am thankful to the following people, who have supported this episode through Patreon and PayPal and thus keep this show on the air:

Georges, Steve Hoos, Butterbeans, Rhodane the Insane, Michael Small, Jonathan M. Hethey, Michael Mullan-Jensen, Dave, 1i11g, Jaroslav Lichtblau, Jackie Plage, Philip Klostermann, ikn, Bennett Piater, Sandman616, tobias, Vlad, m0dese7en, Kai Siers, Joe Poser, Rizele, Fadi Mansour, Dirk Dede, avis, David Potter, Mika, MrAmish, Cam, Dave Umrysh, RikyM, Barry Williams, Jonathan, RJ Tracey, Rick Bragg, Captain Egghead, astralc, Robert Forster, Superuser, D, Noreply and krunkle.

Many thanks to my Twitch subscribers: Mike_TheDane, jonathanmh_com, Galteran, l_terrestris_jim, mtesauro, redeemerf, BaconThePork and m0dese7en_is_unavailable.

I am also thankful to Bytemark, who are providing the hosting for this episode’s audio file.

Podcast Music

The show’s theme song is Acoustic Routes by Raúl Cabezalí. It is licensed via Jamendo Music. Other music and some sound effects are licensed via Epidemic Sound. This episode’s ending song is Hacienda by Jett Everill.