Putin is losing, but it may not matter, says Linda Thomas- Greenfield

 Putin is losing, but it may not matter

Vladimir Putin "has recognized he has no victory to celebrate," US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told CNN in response to the lack of a major escalatory announcement in the Russian President's Victory Day speech on Monday.

This is what Linda Thomas-Greenfield — the US ambassador to the United Nations and an increasingly assured voice in the Biden administration — had to say about President Vladimir Putin’s much-hyped Victory Day speech.

“His efforts in Ukraine have not succeeded," she told CNN in an interview, adding that the Russian leader had “recognized he has no victory to celebrate.” She went on: "He was not able to go into Ukraine and bring them to their knees in a few days and have them surrender."

Thomas-Greenfield’s statement is objectively true given the heroic Ukrainian resistance against the Russian invasion and the billions of dollars in arms and ammunition flooded into the country by the West. And it’s the kind of thing that Russians will never get to hear given the crackdown by Putin on independent media in his country that has allowed him to wage a parallel reality war. 

But the statement by Thomas-Greenfield and other Western assessments that Putin is losing may not be that helpful for figuring out what happens next. If it’s true that Russia is headed for defeat, then Putin might reasonably be expected to start looking for a way out. But the logical assumptions of outsiders do not take into account the workings of Putin’s ruthless mindset.

The war is clearly a major strategic disaster and has made Russia a pariah, killed thousands of its troops and ruined its economy. But that doesn’t mean Putin sees it that way. He might have changed his strategy in the face of Ukrainian resistance, but he’s given no indication that he sees rolling into the country was a mistake, and his political position seems secure at home.

The Russian leader’s speech on Monday was full of lies and misinformation and claims that the US started the war, not him. But the false narrative that this is really a war against the West fits right into Putin’s belief system and strategic goals. While the Cold War is remembered in the West as a terrible time of tension and dread, Putin views it with nostalgia as an epoch when the world gave the Kremlin the respect due to a superpower. So a new Cold War wouldn’t necessarily be a bad long-term outcome for him.

Similarly, Putin might wish his troops succeeded in taking over Kyiv and toppling the government. But if he can't secure his main goal in Ukraine, then a trail of human carnage and destruction still sends a warning to other nations in the ex-Soviet orbit not to get too cozy with the West. A key consideration will be whether Putin’s forces can capture and secure sufficient land in the east and south of Ukraine to fashion some kind of victory declaration, even if it looks to everyone else like he's lost.

Until that point is reached, Putin could drag on the war for months to come.

Stephen Collinson and Shelby Rose

May 11, 2022

CNN