When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his war of aggression against Ukraine on February 24, he evidently expected a quick and easy victory. Having implied in his speeches that Ukraine was a flimsy fiction of a country, he assumed that it was doomed to collapse, despite the fact that it committed almost 85% of Russia's active military to what it called a "special operation". ”.
With the sudden success of the Ukrainian armed forces' counteroffensive in recent weeks, the war has entered a new phase.
Obviously, Putin was drastically wrong in his perception of the country he was invading. He should have imagined it. In 2014, after his annexation of Crimea, he attempted to take over much of eastern and southern Ukraine with a combination of allied forces and direct military intervention; but the Ukrainians mounted a determined defense of their freedom and independence – and they have done so again this year.
By April, the Kremlin had already been forced to admit that its effort to capture Kyiv and topple the Ukrainian authorities had failed. The withdrawal of Russian forces from the areas around the capital exposed a picture of deliberate destruction and war crimes. Russian military leaders in a second phase of the aggression then shifted their focus and focused on capturing the Donetsk and Luhansk districts, which include the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine, as well as the entire Black Sea coast east of Odessa. .
In the last six months, Europe has seen its most intense combat since World War II. Russian artillery has pummeled Ukrainian cities and towns, indiscriminately attacking residential areas, hospitals, kindergartens and power plants. However, Russia's progress has been much more limited than anticipated. Armed with modern Western weapons, the Ukrainian forces managed to hold their own. The conflict seemed to have turned into a protracted war of attrition. While Russia's offensive had stalled, Russia's substantially larger size meant that it could continue to commit resources (albeit of increasingly poorer quality). Ukraine's prospects remained highly uncertain.
But now it seems that things have turned around. Ukraine launched a counteroffensive first in the south, around Kherson, and then carried out a hit-and-run attack on Russian positions in the northeast, around Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city. As I was in Kyiv when the news of the rapid advance of the Ukrainian forces began to arrive, I can say that the mood there was exultant. "Now," they all said, "we have shown the world that victory is possible."
The mood in Moscow is said to be the opposite of exultant – and rightly so. The Russians are quickly realizing that defeating the Ukrainian army and occupying the entire country, as Putin projected, is not possible.
Consequently, pro-Kremlin bloggers have started complaining about strategic mistakes and lack of supplies for the troops. As one analyst observed: "We have already lost, the rest is just a matter of time." Even in the official Russian media, one sees shock and despair. While some analysts desperately demand a declaration of all-out war and widespread mobilization, others argue that it would not help, and that it is time for political negotiations with Ukraine. But there is no clear message in general. Putin, from his bunker in the Kremlin, continues to insist that everything is going according to plan. But that argument has clearly lost credibility.
With no real chance of a military victory, Putin is now cutting off energy supplies to Europe, hoping that a harsh winter will force Europeans to stop supporting Ukraine. But that's another Kremlin miscalculation. The Europeans will not do that. Europe has reduced its dependence on Russian gas from 40% to 9% in the space of just a few months, and its winter gas reserves are already 84% full. Although there will still be difficulties, they will not have any decisive political effect. Energy blackmail was one of Putin's last weapons, and it is losing strength day by day.
Now, Europe and the United States must step up their support for Ukraine. Providing the 5 billion euros ($5 billion) a month needed to keep the Ukrainian state going will require only about 0.03% of EU GDP. That support must be in addition to the sustained effort to strengthen and re-equip the Ukrainian armed forces with more Western tools. The United States has clearly been leading in all of this, but Europe must also do its part.
My guess is that Putin will remain holed up in his Kremlin fortress (and information bubble) through the winter in the hope that his political strategy against Europe will succeed. In the event, however, it will have become clear in Moscow that both military and political strategies have failed. At that moment, a radically new situation will arise. Not only will it be obvious to everyone that Russia cannot win; they might also begin to think that Russia will lose the war that Putin started.
At that point, Russia will have no choice but to leave behind the profound strategic failure of the Putin regime.
Carl Bildt was the prime minister and foreign minister of Sweden.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2022.
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