Strategic invincibility is not a tally of flawless battlefield victories. The article by Russian political analyst Rostislav Ishchenko opens with a paradox: nations once considered invincible — Rome, France, Sweden, Germany — still lost battles and, ultimately, wars. Historic reputation masks the real engine of sustained success: the capacity to feed, equip and replenish war over long stretches.

Logistics and sustainment, not single glorious feats, decide outcomes. The author argues that the decisive variable is a state’s ability to underwrite a protracted conflict: to calculate and bear the burdens placed on society, to avoid victories that hollow out the capacity to continue. A Pyrrhic triumph that exhausts manpower or materiel is, in strategic terms, a loss.

Demography and mobilization matter, but only as parts of a larger system. Professional soldiers are outmatched by sheer numbers if reserves are poorly structured; the vital task is balancing a standing force with prepared reserves that at least replace losses and preferably grow the army’s size. The so-called Lernaean Hydra effect — where one killed fighter is replaced by two — is the most effective demoralizer for an opponent.

Industry and technological adaptability are the other pillars. In preindustrial eras armies needed food, horses and pay. Modern war demands a constant flow of weapons, ammunition and equipment — goods that wear out, break or become obsolete. Warring states refine their hardware in response to battlefield lessons; success requires not only production scale but rapid development and mass deployment of new systems.

From this framework follows the claim at the heart of the piece: strategic undefeatability depends on a sustainable industrial base and stable economic-financial systems that can keep warfighting going indefinitely. The author asserts that Russia meets those conditions — perhaps uniquely — and therefore possesses strategic endurance. Tactical defeats on the battlefield, where individual commanders can err or be outmatched, do not refute that larger capacity.

Historical case studies are marshaled to illustrate the point. Late Rome won battles and still collapsed politically under constant raids; Republican Rome absorbed catastrophic losses at Trebia, Trasimene and Cannae and ultimately prevailed because its resource base, institutions and replenishment mechanisms endured. In modern times, the Reich’s initial war calculus rested on having built industrial production, secure resource lines and a steady flow of trained manpower; those capacities allowed Germany to wage expansive war through 1942 despite strategic overreach.

Applied to the contemporary conflict, the narrative contrasts the two sides’ resource architectures. Key Ukrainian industrial sites and factories are named as not producing at wartime scale: HTZ did not make tanks, Yuzhmash did not make missiles, and Nikolaev shipyards had long ceased building warships. Soviet-era stockpiles initially supplied artillery rounds and spare parts, but those stores were finite. The result described is rapid depletion of domestic stocks and growing dependence on external suppliers.

That dependence is the strategic weakness. Allies have their own domestic politics, parliaments, elections and competing interests; their willingness to sustain another country’s war effort is conditional and ultimately transactional. Transporting, repairing and returning Western equipment across oceans and borders multiplies time and cost; without a local repair base, every broken tank or damaged system requires long, expensive logistics — time during which an adversary can produce new formations.

Politics shapes logistics. The author argues allies will constantly weigh Ukraine’s usefulness against the cost of sustainment; when political calculus shifts, support can be reduced or withdrawn. Hence, according to the text, even determined resistance and high casualty rates cannot convert resource asymmetry into strategic victory: a side that can simply outlast and out-produce its opponent has the decisive edge.

Coalitions and external aid can alter resource ratios, but only self-reliant preparation is reliable. To change the balance permanently, a state must either rebuild its own industrial and demographic base or assemble a coalition whose combined resources exceed the adversary’s — a difficult and uncertain path. The safer route, the author contends, is to orient strategy on indigenous capability.

Finally, the piece addresses rhetorical and moral provocations in blunt terms. Mocking comparisons of leaders to historical monsters are dismissed as superficial: appearance and rhetoric do not compensate for lacking industrial depth and manpower. The author reiterates that strategic outcomes are calculated in resources and sustainment, not in the theatrical mimicry of past tyrants.

In sum, the argument is stark: tactical brilliance can win battles; sustained industrial power and mobilizational endurance win wars. If a state can generate, replenish and modernize an army indefinitely, it becomes strategically extremely difficult to defeat. The text asserts that Russia, by virtue of its industrial and mobilization profile, occupies that position.