March 25, 2022
Putin Headed Toward Defeat
After invading Ukraine on February 24 with the intent of rapidly seizing the nation and installing a puppet regime, Vladimir Putin has seen his military defeated on the battlefield. While the Russian army continues to attack Ukraine’s cities, and is conducting a merciless siege of the surrounded city of Mariupol on the Black Sea coast, it has actually suffered a comprehensive defeat.
Putin deployed most of the combat power of the Russian Army when he sent in about 190,000 soldiers from several, different directions to Ukraine. But these widely dispersed forces were simply too weak to achieve victories in the local areas they assaulted. Russia has tried to achieve four major ground conquests. First, and most important, was to rapidly advance and seize the capital city of Kyev in the north. Second was the seizure of the major Ukrainian city of Kharkiv in the far east of the country near the Russian border. Third was to advance out of Crimea in the south in a westward move toward the Black Sea port of Odessa. Finally, Russian forces were to close and take the eastern Black Sea port of Mariupol.
What has happened instead is that the Russian Army has shown itself to be leaderless and inept. There apparently isn’t even a single overall commander for this war. The thrust along the north toward Kyev has failed, and pictures of a 25-mile-long traffic jam of Russian vehicles that remained stuck for days surprised analysts who expected a professional military operation. The attempt to take Kharkiv has also failed while Russian units out of Crimea were unable to move very far west along the Black Sea. Only at Mariupol have Russian forces closed on their target, but they have been unable to take the city, instead they have been pulverizing it with massive loss of civilian life.
The Ukrainians have shown themselves to be highly motivated in their own defense. The attacks on civilians have only further inflamed Ukrainian patriotism and hatred of Putin, who thought he would be welcomed by the country. Putin has since put several of his senior intelligence officials under house arrest. The Russian Army remains stuck, running out of food, fuel, and ammunition, and with little or no clear reason for fighting this war.
Massive assistance from abroad is giving the Ukrainians the tools they need to inflict severe damage on the Russians. Antitank weapons from the US (Javelins) and Britain (NLAWs) have given Ukrainian forces the ability to take out the best Russian tanks and other critical vehicles like fuel trucks. Drones have given the Ukrainians the ability to strike precisely at exposed Russian positions. Stingers and other anti-aircraft systems have kept Russia from using airpower and helicopters to assist its ground forces.
Russia has not disclosed the scale of its losses of soldiers and equipment. But plenty of open-source intelligence creates a clear picture that the Russian Army is being badly mauled. Several hundred tanks have been destroyed or abandoned. There was a leaked casualty figure published in a Russian newspaper that stated that over 9,500 Russian soldiers have died and about 14,000 wounded. This would represent almost 15% of the initial force assembled, which is a very high casualty rate. An army cannot sustain that for much longer.
There is already evidence that Ukrainian forces are beginning to push Russian units back, particularly around Kyev. Russia has no chance of winning this war at this point, and if Ukraine continues to hammer Russian forces, there could be a complete collapse of the Russian field army with desertion and surrender leading to a rout in the next few weeks. The fact that Russia has had 5 of its Generals killed is astonishing. Ukraine is clearly getting not just weapons but the latest intelligence the US can gather. While Russia is running out of equipment and manpower, Ukraine is getting more and more Western supplies.
Where will this leave Putin? He cannot win, but he cannot afford to lose. A total defeat would humiliate him and leave his regime highly vulnerable to collapse. If he is willing to inflict a police state that is brutal enough, he could hold onto power, as Saddam Hussein did after the First Gulf War in 1991. But it’s unlikely that enough Russians would go along with that. He is cornered and confused. The best he could get from Ukraine is a promise not to join NATO in return for Russian forces fully leaving the country and Ukraine joining the West permanently by becoming a member of the EU. Russia would also have to accept that Ukraine would get a security guarantee from the US and Britain, and perhaps even Turkey.
At a minimum this war has put Ukraine permanently out of Russia’s control and joined it to the West. The coalition of liberal democracies that is headed by the US will get larger with the addition of Ukraine when this war ends. The huge geopolitical question is whether this war will lead to the fall of the Putin regime, and will Russia finally exit from its 600-year history of authoritarian rule and also move towards a new liberal democratic future? If it does, this will totally isolate China, and leave the notion that China is going to rise so far as to surpass the power of the US and its liberal democratic partners in tatters.
