Vladimir Putin’s definitive quality as president — his refusal ever to back down — helped him project Russian global power for years. But facing repeated setbacks in a catastrophic war in Ukraine, his inflexible approach is looking more like his great flaw.
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As Russian forces fled in disarray in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region Saturday — dressing as civilians, stealing bicycles, abandoning tons of military equipment and ammunition — Putin sounded strikingly tone deaf as he opened a giant new Ferris wheel in Moscow. “There is nothing like that in Europe,” he boasted via video-link.
Within hours, the Ferris wheel had broken down, and tickets had to be refunded. Repairing what’s broken about Putin’s war strategy and, by extension, his presidency and reputation, will be far harder.
Ukraine’s northeastern counteroffensive was underway even as Putin, at a conference in the Far East days earlier, insisted that Russia had “lost nothing and will lose nothing” in the war, a remark that seemed oblivious to Russia’s repeated setbacks and shockingly high casualties, and ignorant of what was transpiring on the battlefield.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Monday that the war “will continue until the goals that have been set are achieved.” What those goals are, however, is difficult to know. Putin’s initial goal, of capturing Kyiv and topping Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government, failed.
Now, Western intelligence and military analysts argue Russia is unlikely to achieve its presumed fallback goal of conquering all of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
Presuming that Putin’s goal involves being able to declare victory in some form, the messy Russian retreat from Kharkiv — what Moscow called a “regroup” — now leaves the 69-year-old president with stark and shrinking choices.
He could scale-up and announce a politically risky national mandatory military mobilization — something Peskov on Tuesday denied was even under discussion. He could grind on, plowing in poorly trained and increasingly de-motivated soldiers, and carrying out brutal artillery attacks on towns and cities to terrorize the Ukrainian population.
Or, he could escalate in some extreme fashion, as some of Putin’s fiercest critics fear, turning to chemical or even nuclear weapons.
So far, Putin has done everything he can to avoid mandatory mobilization, which risks triggering wider public opposition to the war — even though many Russian military experts believe there is no other way to defeat Ukraine militarily.
And while deploying a weapon of mass destruction cannot be ruled out, many experts play down fears of Putin doing so, because it would destroy his dwindling international support with crucial partners like China and India, and because it would undermine his efforts to convey a sense of normalcy to Russians.
If Putin sticks to his habit of refusing to back down, analysts say, he is most likely to grind on.
“Vladimir Putin certainly has the will to continue this war, but he has been largely operating under the illusion that the Russian military was winning and would eventually win,” said Michael Kofman, director of Russian studies at Arlington-based Center for Naval Analyses, or CNA.
“The question is, is he willing to take the political risk to try to salvage the Russian military effort in this war?” Kofman said, referring to mandatory mobilization.
“Many Russians have been fairly lukewarm in terms of either supporting or not caring about this war, seeing their lives as largely unaffected because they believe that their kids will not be sent the fight,” Kofman added. “People’s attitudes really change if they think their kids will be sent to fight.”
Nor is either side is ready to discuss peace. Dmitry Medvedev, Russian deputy head of the Security Council, said Monday the war would not end without Kyiv’s “total capitulation.”
Meanwhile Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, now speaks with increasing boldness about taking back not only all of the eastern Donbas region, but also Crimea, which Russia annexed illegally in 2014.
We're following changes at the palace after the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. Get the Post Elizabeth newsletter for updates.
As Russian forces fled in disarray in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region Saturday — dressing as civilians, stealing bicycles, abandoning tons of military equipment and ammunition — Putin sounded strikingly tone deaf as he opened a giant new Ferris wheel in Moscow. “There is nothing like that in Europe,” he boasted via video-link.
Within hours, the Ferris wheel had broken down, and tickets had to be refunded. Repairing what’s broken about Putin’s war strategy and, by extension, his presidency and reputation, will be far harder.
Ukraine’s northeastern counteroffensive was underway even as Putin, at a conference in the Far East days earlier, insisted that Russia had “lost nothing and will lose nothing” in the war, a remark that seemed oblivious to Russia’s repeated setbacks and shockingly high casualties, and ignorant of what was transpiring on the battlefield.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Monday that the war “will continue until the goals that have been set are achieved.” What those goals are, however, is difficult to know. Putin’s initial goal, of capturing Kyiv and topping Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government, failed.
Now, Western intelligence and military analysts argue Russia is unlikely to achieve its presumed fallback goal of conquering all of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
Presuming that Putin’s goal involves being able to declare victory in some form, the messy Russian retreat from Kharkiv — what Moscow called a “regroup” — now leaves the 69-year-old president with stark and shrinking choices.
He could scale-up and announce a politically risky national mandatory military mobilization — something Peskov on Tuesday denied was even under discussion. He could grind on, plowing in poorly trained and increasingly de-motivated soldiers, and carrying out brutal artillery attacks on towns and cities to terrorize the Ukrainian population.
Or, he could escalate in some extreme fashion, as some of Putin’s fiercest critics fear, turning to chemical or even nuclear weapons.
So far, Putin has done everything he can to avoid mandatory mobilization, which risks triggering wider public opposition to the war — even though many Russian military experts believe there is no other way to defeat Ukraine militarily.
And while deploying a weapon of mass destruction cannot be ruled out, many experts play down fears of Putin doing so, because it would destroy his dwindling international support with crucial partners like China and India, and because it would undermine his efforts to convey a sense of normalcy to Russians.
If Putin sticks to his habit of refusing to back down, analysts say, he is most likely to grind on.
“Vladimir Putin certainly has the will to continue this war, but he has been largely operating under the illusion that the Russian military was winning and would eventually win,” said Michael Kofman, director of Russian studies at Arlington-based Center for Naval Analyses, or CNA.
“The question is, is he willing to take the political risk to try to salvage the Russian military effort in this war?” Kofman said, referring to mandatory mobilization.
“Many Russians have been fairly lukewarm in terms of either supporting or not caring about this war, seeing their lives as largely unaffected because they believe that their kids will not be sent the fight,” Kofman added. “People’s attitudes really change if they think their kids will be sent to fight.”
Nor is either side is ready to discuss peace. Dmitry Medvedev, Russian deputy head of the Security Council, said Monday the war would not end without Kyiv’s “total capitulation.”
Meanwhile Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, now speaks with increasing boldness about taking back not only all of the eastern Donbas region, but also Crimea, which Russia annexed illegally in 2014.
