Putin’s World Is Now Smaller Than Ever
The moral and strategic disaster of the Russian leader’s war in Ukraine has ended his imperial dreams.
Faced with Ukraine’s successful counteroffensive in the country’s east and south in recent weeks, as well as a growing chorus of hawks in the Russian state media criticizing Russia’s military failures, Russian President Vladimir Putin has raised the stakes. He has ordered the mobilization of 300,000 additional troops and implied that he would use nuclear weapons if the West continued to support Ukraine. After sham referendums in four Russian-occupied regions, Putin on Friday signed a decree to annex them to Russia. Now, Ukraine’s counteroffensives there will be deemed an attack on Russia itself and subject to escalatory retaliation. These actions underscore the miscalculations behind Putin’s decision to invade in February and determination to remove Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from power. Seven months after the start of the invasion, Putin hasn’t learned any lessons from the mistakes that doomed it in the first place.
In the invasion’s immediate aftermath, it was clear that Putin had made four major miscalculations. The first miscalculation was the overestimation of the Russian military’s strength and effectiveness. No doubt, those in his immediate circle would only tell him what he wanted to hear. Putin apparently had been led to believe that the war would be over after a 72-hour blitzkrieg, Kyiv would fall, and Zelensky would surrender or flee and be replaced by a puppet government controlled by Russia.
Russian officers were reported to have carried with them ceremonial uniforms to be worn during the expected victory parade. But the Russian military performed much worse than Putin (and apparently the U.S. intelligence agencies) expected. It was unable to take Kyiv and had to make a humiliating retreat, leaving devastation in its wake, with atrocities committed in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, and other areas nearby. Many of the young Russian recruits were so badly prepared for the conflict that they did not even know they were invading Ukraine, and Russian morale was low. Tanks and other military equipment were in need of repair, logistics were haphazard, and the invading army did not bring enough fuel or food to sustain it for a longer war. The corruption that pervades all aspects of Russian society was also rife in the military. Money that should have gone to training and equipment lined people’s pockets instead.
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