Russia continues to advance in the field in Ukraine, especially in the Donbass region, where the fighting of the war is most intense.
President Vladimir Putin can and will inflict more suffering, and while his armed forces are not strong enough to overthrow Zelensky’s government and capture the entire Ukraine, as he initially hoped, he is confident that Ukraine will not be able to expel its troops. territory they already control. He also knows that the global food and fuel inflation created by his war will test the Western determination to continue supporting Ukraine at current levels to the limit.
From a longer-term point of view, however, Russia has already lost the war, and Putin’s decision to invade will be remembered as one of the biggest and stupidest mistakes any major power leader has made in decades. What did Putin hope his invasion would accomplish?
Its stated goals are the “denazification and demilitarization” of Ukraine. By denazification, he meant the removal of any Ukrainian government that would prefer to maintain stronger ties with Europe than with Russia. When he spoke of demilitarization, he meant the desire to strip Ukraine of any ability to challenge Russian hegemony in the future, whoever is in power in Kiev.
His ambition extended far beyond Ukraine. Putin also wanted to show the US and Europe that Russia needs to be treated as a great power, able to define its own sphere of influence. He wanted to expose Western powers as weak and divided. He also hoped to bolster his prestige with the Russian people, as had happened with the annexation of Crimea in 2014. What did he achieve?
Putin exposed Russia as a delusional and dangerous power that wants to redesign Europe’s security architecture and redraw the borders of a democracy by brute force and with a constant stream of lies about the neighboring country’s motivations. He demonstrated that he has no idea what the Ukrainians are willing to fight for or how the West will react to blatant, large-scale aggression.
He did generational damage to his own Armed Forces. More Russians died in action in a hundred days in Ukraine than Soviet soldiers died in a decade in Afghanistan. Large numbers of tanks and other heavy equipment were lost. Artillery supplies dwindled.
US export controls on the sale of critical components to Russia will further hamper efforts to restock its arsenal. Putin also provided the rest of the world with a clear and unobstructed view of Russian capabilities, limitations and vulnerabilities. Furthermore, he substantially undermined the morale of a fighting force ill-equipped for the mission its leader designed.
Putin gave Europe and the United States a sense of common purpose that hasn’t been there since the Cold War ended. He reminded many Europeans why American aid is so valuable and showed Americans that Europeans are willing to make difficult choices and painful sacrifices to defend Western values. He has enlarged NATO, despite Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s current objections, and extended the Russian-NATO border by convincing Finland and Sweden that they will be safer within the alliance than outside it. Two-thirds of voters in Eurosceptic Denmark have now voted to strengthen defense ties with the European Union.
Putin has burdened his economy with US and European sanctions that are unlikely to be lifted as long as he remains in power. It created a long-term shortage of critical spare parts for the Russian manufacturing sector. He has left himself vulnerable to criticism from Russians who hate the international isolation they know is coming, but also from those who feel he mismanaged a war Russia should have won without difficulty.
Putin persuaded the European Union to make drastic cuts in its imports of Russian energy, a vital source of revenue for the Russian government. He proved to European leaders that they need to spend a lot more money on defending Europe. All of this was virtually unthinkable before Russia began amassing troops on Ukraine’s borders. Putin has also left his country deeply dependent on China’s goodwill (which is still limited). The process of diverting large volumes of Russian energy from Europe to Asia will take a lot of time and money — and with fewer interested buyers, Russia will be forced to sell its commodities at discounted prices.
In return, he can gain control of Donbass and a larger part of the Black Sea coastline, in order to link that territory to the Crimea. Of course, Russia is not entirely isolated. There are still people and governments in all regions of the world who see the US as a greater threat than Russia to the world’s shared prosperity and peace. Many governments will continue to purchase Russian commodities and weapons, especially at necessarily lower prices.
But the worst part of this self-inflicted damage is irreversible, at least as long as Putin remains in power. That is why, although the fighting may continue for months or even years, Putin has already lost this war.
