Putin's Folly

A Bad War Gone Wrong

It’s difficult to make predictions regarding a horrifying conflict that many people, including me, didn’t even believe would happen until it did. Much of what is happening in Ukraine is still shrouded in the fog of war, in propaganda and counter-narratives from both sides, which we observe as spectators through the news and the usual partial glimpses from mobile phones and social media videos.

Nevertheless, after four days of war, it’s clear that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine hasn’t gone Russia’s way.  Despite its overwhelming firepower and air superiority, the second most powerful military in the world has failed to take any major population centre, and the ‘hybrid warfare’ combination that worked well for Russia in Crimea and eastern Ukraine has failed to bring about the collapse of Ukrainian’s armed forces and its government.

Many people have tried to get ‘inside Putin’s head’ – an effort that requires a lot of speculation and very little else -  but it’s difficult to believe that Putin anticipated these outcomes. In all his previous wars, Putin played his cards according to a realistic expectation of what he could achieve and/or what he could get away with.

In this case he appears to have misread Ukraine itself, misread how Western states might react in response to his brazen violation of all international norms, misread what his own population were willing to accept, and misread what China was willing to do for its authoritarian partner-of-convenience. Did Putin expect China to actually vote against  Russia in the UN security council?  Very doubtful.

Did he think that Germany would cancel Nord Stream 2? Perhaps. But it’s unlikely the anticipated that Germany would start sending Stinger missiles to Ukraine, let alone that the EU would also begin to buy arms for Ukraine.  Now Sweden and Finland look set to join NATO, the Russian economy is in free fall, Russia is a pariah state, and Russians are taking part in antiwar protests inside Russia itself.

Had Russia made a rapid advance to Kiev and Kharkhiv, knocked off Ukraine’s government and replaced it with Russian puppets, none of this might have happened. Putin might have got away with it, in a world still preoccupied with the pandemic and with his major adversaries weakened, politically divided, or led by charlatans.

But now Russia faces a very different scenario, and that is mostly due to the extraordinary courage and resourcefulness shown by Ukraine’s military and by ordinary Ukrainians, in slowing and holding up the Russian advance, and in holding fast to the country and its institutions.

This defiance is now symbolised by its president, the former comedian Volodymr Zelensky, who has demonstrated a level of personal courage that is almost impossible to imagine from so many of the world leaders that have come to power in these dismal and degraded times of national-populism. 

Not only has Zelensky chosen to stay and fight with his army rather than abandon his country, but he has shown consummate political skills in the midst of the gravest crisis that any leader can ever face, whether communicating to his own people and vacillating European governments, or in his remarkable address to the Russian population.

Zelensky may yet be killed, and Putin will certainly want him dead. But if that happens the former comedian will have had the last laugh.  Because what he has done cannot be snuffed out with a missile, a bullet or poison.  Even if Zelensky were to die tomorrow,  he would be the hero of his country for as long as his country exists, and an inspiration to Ukraine in its current struggle.

The Sphinx Without a Riddle

There is nothing to suggest that Putin expected resistance on this scale. If he had, then he would have used Russian air power and its vast missile arsenal to destroy Ukraine’s armed forces and terrorise its cities before even trying to enter them.  

This is the standard methodology used by most countries with this kind of weaponry at their disposal, and it could still happen. But if Putin does it now, it will be a further confirmation that he underestimated his enemies militarily and politically. It will also destroy all the supposed justifications for his invasion. Like the Americans in Vietnam, Putin will be forced to destroy Ukraine in order to ‘save’ it, or withdraw his forces and accept defeat. 

It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that this supposed master-strategist believed his own ‘de-nazification’ propaganda, or else he was so dazzled by Russia’s military superiority that he dismissed or failed to prepare for the possibility that war does not always conform to the expectations of military planners. 

History is filled with examples in which powerful leaders took their omnipotence and infallibility for granted, with disastrous results. Nor is this tendency limited to autocrats who don’t need to listen to advice. Bush and Blair made the same mistake when they invaded Iraq in the belief that they would welcomed as a liberators.

Did Putin believe that Ukrainians would throw flowers at his tanks?  Almost certainly not, but he doesn’t seem to have predicted that they would fight the way they have. Now much of the world is united against Russia and united in support of Ukraine, with the exception of the populist-nationalist political forces on the right and far-right that Russia has cultivated over the years.  In the US, the Republican Party has remained silent as the former president has praised Putin. 

In the UK, a small section of the left has responded to the war by blaming NATO and the British government for causing it - accompanied by a muted criticism of Russia which doesn’t even begin to describe the savagery and criminality of what Putin has done.

Faced with these outcomes, Putin has behaved the way a certain breed of autocrat will always behave. While Zelensky sits on the frontlines with his soldiers, Putin the horseriding bear fighter, issues increasingly deranged and reckless threats. Today he has placed Russian nuclear forces on their highest level of alert in response to ‘aggressive statements’ by NATO countries.

This is as terrifying a development as Putin clearly meant it to be, but it is also another indication - like the deployment of Chechen special forces in Ukraine - that Donald Trump’s ‘genius’ knows that he has botched his war..

No one should be complacent when such threats are made - or responded to - but Putin knows perfectly well that if were to fire a single nuclear missile at a Western target, Russia would be annihilated.   It is difficult to believe that the Russian military or the Russian population will be willing to accept nuclear armageddon to spare a dictator’s blushes.

For the time being, we should take some consolation from the fact that Zelensky and the gangster-Chekist in the Kremlin have apparently agreed to negotiations. It remains to be seen whether these discussions actually take place, and what will even be discussed in them, but at some point such discussions must take place, because this is how all wars end – especially wars that cannot be won be either side.

The sooner that point is reached, the better. Already it is clear that Putin will be negotiating with a leader who is in much more of a position of strength than the former ever expected him to be. At the same time Zelensky will be aware that his country can’t survive the kind of onslaught that Putin must surely be planning, without escalating the war to new levels of devastation.

To those who baulk at the idea of negotiating with an aggressor: sometimes you have to do it, no matter how unjust such negotiations may seem.  A better outcome would be the end of Putin, overthrown by a popular movement inside Russia, but ideal outcomes aren’t always possible.

And the fact that these negotiations are even being considered at all is a tribute to Ukraine’s defiance, and further proof that Putin has failed to achieve his objectives, and created a calamity that sooner or later will surely bring him down.