It was ludicrous and pathetic — but also strangely reassuring. There has been much discussion about whether Putin is rational, because attacking Ukraine with such a small army was an act of lunacy. The evidence suggests that, while Putin is isolated and prone to miscalculation, he is not insane.
He appears to grasp, as I argued last week, that mobilization would bring more problems than it would solve. It would risk undermining Russia’s already battered economy, along with popular support for his criminal regime, but it would not deliver any immediate military benefits. Mobilizing more troops would take many months — and it would be exceedingly difficult to train, equip or supply them. As for using nuclear weapons, that would be the action of a madman who fears that the end is near. Putin’s troops are carrying out unspeakable war crimes, but he is far from Hitler-in-the-bunker territory.
Russia has paid a fearsome price for meager gains. Kyiv claims that more than 25,000 Russian soldiers have been killed; that figure might be exaggerated but probably not by much. Open-source reporting confirms that Russia has lost more than 3,500 vehicles (including more than 600 tanks), 121 aircraft and nine naval vessels, including the flagship of the Black Sea fleet. Those are the worst losses Russia has suffered since World War II.
While Russia gets weaker, Ukraine gets stronger: It now has more tanksthan at the start of the war, much better artillery and far more weapons systems of all kinds. Russian morale is poor, with officers reportedly disobeying orders; Ukrainian morale is sky-high.
The Russian economy hasn’t collapsed under sanctions, but it has taken a severe hit: The economy is forecast to shrink by as much as 10 percent this year, and inflation could reach 23 percent. The damage will only accelerate as Russian production lines are cut off from Western imports such as microchips.
Far from striking a blow against the West, Putin has united the West against him, and his actions have led to a surge of NATO military activity in Eastern Europe. If Finland and Sweden join the Atlantic alliance, as seems likely, that will bring even more NATO troops to Russia’s doorstep.
Putin is now in a strategic quandary that should be familiar to Americans after our misbegotten wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq — only many times worse. Russia has launched a “war of choice” based on bad intelligence (such as the assumption that Ukrainians would welcome the Russians as liberators). The war is going badly, but once troops are committed, emotions run high and national prestige is on the line. Both escalation and withdrawal are too painful to contemplate. The easiest thing to do is to continue doing what you’ve been doing, even if there is scant hope that the results will get any better.
That means the most likely outcome in Ukraine is another frozen conflict — the situation that prevailed between 2014 and 2022. The major issue now is how far east the front line will run. That is far from ideal, but if Ukraine can return its borders close to where they were on Feb. 24, while sanctions continue to erode the Russian economy, it will be a tremendous victory for the West and a terrible defeat for Russia. Putin’s Victory Day speech might indicate he is groping for a way out, as the British defense minister suggests, but there is no easy exit from the disaster he created.
Source: Opinion | Putin is trapped in a quagmire and doesn’t know how to get out
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