Putin expected his invasion of Ukraine would be successful in two days with the capture of Kyiv. But his army faces enormous resistance which he didn’t anticipate but which was his own doing: Putin made it clear in his speech that he was launching a genocidal attack against Ukraine and Ukrainians. Faced with “extinction”, Ukrainians believe they have nothing to lose which is why a significant number are putting their lives on the line to defeat Russia. This defiance, in turn, has brought world opinion onto their side but simply infuriates Putin further. Now, it is impossible to imagine how either Russia or Ukraine can win. Or the world. But Putin will triumph.
Where this is going is anyone’s guess. What follows are scenarios by astute observers, starting with an “optimistic one — bordering on wishful thinking without basis — put forth in a televised interview with former U.S. General David Petraeus. He believes Russia will be bogged down for a long time because of the courage and cunning of Ukraine’s resistance and said “I don’t think this is a war that Putin can win. He can take a city or two but cannot hold it and urban warfare is intensive and requires more manpower. They hate the Russians.”
If that becomes reality, a deal could be struck. The trade-off would be that in return for a cease-fire and withdrawal of Russian troops, Ukraine would agree to let Putin keep the Donbas region and Crimea, never join NATO or the EU and the West would withdraw its sanctions.
More likely, Russia will continue. Some believe his endgame is merely to capture a major city – Kyiv or Kharkiv – and hold it hostage to end the conflict and dictate terms. Alternatively, he may push all the way and install a puppet regime, but he will be embroiled in an interminable insurrection. Russia would need tens of thousands of troops to control Ukraine and people would be shooting at them every day and every night, almost everywhere.
The most pessimistic scenario is that he will accelerate his invasion by unleashing more artillery attacks, and possibly chemical ones, on the population as he did in Aleppo and in Chechnya. “He won’t hesitate to destroy a city but the difference is this time the world is watching. It wasn’t before,” said a British chemical warfare expert who also speculated that Putin could but won’t do so.
Aleppo Syria had twice the population of Kyiv and was reduced to rubble after terrible attacks by Russia and Iran. The country essentially disappeared. In total, five million Syrians fled their country during this civil war and flooded into Europe and millions more ended up in refugee camps. There was an international outcry, but Russia was not crushed by sanctions, as were Iran and the Syrian governments. Putin hid its misdeeds behind his Wagner Group mercenaries but this time he boldly uses his own military to repeat the history he was never properly punished for.
As he escalates in Ukraine, NATO will have to engage no matter the risk because Aleppo-style attacks will trigger another humanitarian and refugee tsunami so sizeable that it would shake the security of Europe’s nation-states. In anticipation of pushback by NATO, Putin has frightened the entire world with his heightened nuclear alert and past barbarity. He is already attacking civilians and has weaponized another mass refugee crisis, but a direct confrontation with NATO would bring about a clash between the two nuclear superpowers.
The West’s serial weakness concerning Putin’s predations raises another possibility. If he conquers Ukraine, he will attack a NATO nation or two. He has already demanded that NATO withdraw its forces and equipment from Bulgaria and Rumania and has positioned forces and missiles and airbases in Belarus, now occupied by Russia, next to Poland and the three Baltic states. He may launch cyber attacks (he brought down Estonia in 2007, again without incurring sanctions) or pick off this one or that. Putin has, like his speech about Ukraine, made it very clear he wants to destroy NATO on his periphery. He has also threatened Finland and Sweden who are suddenly scurrying to join NATO, saying they will “face some military and political consequences” if they join.
The only hopeful scenario — also wishful thinking — is that the “Russian street”, or his own Russian elite, rises up and ousts Putin from office as their living standards and futures completely collapse. However, that’s about as likely as Ukraine routing the Russian army and pushing it back across the border. Another beneficial outcome would be that, because he sits atop a kleptocracy of thugs and sociopaths, some may decide to bump him off and cut a deal so they can continue to rob the Russian people blind and won’t have Imperial ambitions.
But Putin has made them all rich and doesn’t let anyone get within 25 feet of him. He is sentient and knows exactly what he is doing. This is bloodlust, rooted in animus based on fake history and concocted grievances. This is the continuation of Putin’s War against Europe that I wrote about on November 11, Armistice Day. The only solution in the short term is if Ukraine and Russia can negotiate seriously — with the help of China or India or both ideally – to end this current internecine “mutual shared destruction”. If not, the world will be pulled slowly into Putin’s version of Gotterdamerung, or the downfall of the world as we know it.
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His end game is the old Russia with Ukraine, Poland etc. And now today on CNN you have escalating the rhetoric about WW3 and use of nuclear. Putin would use it as he is using banned weapons. NATO needs to find a way to stop him. before he takes Ukraine and then goes for Poland. Putin idea of old Russia is very dangerous.
This is not "mutual" destruction. Russia is destroying and Ukraine is being destroyed. The West is missing opportunity after opportunity to engage before its too late. Every time it hesitates, Putin ups the ante. Terrible