Triumphalist rhetoric coming out of Moscow notwithstanding, Russia’s war in Ukraine is not progressing according to plan (see EDM, April 11). Nevertheless, President Vladimir Putin repeated yet again last week (April 12) that the central objective of the massive re-invasion of Ukrainian territory starting on February 24 purportedly was always limited to seizing the whole of… Read more »
Author: Pavel Baev
Russia’s Quick Victory Vanishes, as Protracted War Looks Inevitable
Russia has revised its war plan multiple times during the, so far, seven-week-long, ill-conceived large-scale invasion of Ukraine, yet it still remains incompatible with both tactical imperatives and political ambitions. The consecutive revisions themselves have been flawed in different ways: if the initial “Blitzkrieg” design was based on the assumption that the Ukrainian military would… Read more »
Putin’s First Assertive Move On the Energy Front Goes Astray
Combat operations on all key fronts of the Ukraine war continue non-stop, even if without decisive action, but the transit of Russian natural gas to Europe through the Ukrainian pipeline system continues without interruptions. This may appear aberrant given President Vladimir Putin’s well-documented propensity for “weaponizing” energy exports against European customers, most crudely during the… Read more »
Russia’s Strategic Confusion in Ukraine Deepens and Widens
For at least the past 3 weeks of the 33-day-long war against Ukraine, it has been clear that the Russian offensive has lost momentum, with its key groupings of forces stuck in the suburbs of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv. The question that all concerned observers have been asking is what the ostracized Russian leadership will… Read more »
Stalled Military Offensive and Unfolding Political Defeat for Russia in Ukraine
One striking feature of Russia’s fast-evolving war against Ukraine is the highly uneven dynamics of escalation in its different domains. The economic pressure on Russia has reached the level of extra-high intensity and keeps growing daily, for instance, as Halliburton and Schlumberger, two major oilfields servicing companies, announced the closure of their business activities over… Read more »
Will the Russian-Ukrainian War Resonate in Syria?
The predictable and yet shockingly brutal Russian invasion into Ukraine on 24 February 2022 has in the course of three weeks sent many tremors across the world system. Major stock markets experience strong corrections, oil prices register new highs, importers of wheat and sunflower oil are nervously checking their stocks, but one place that hasn’t… Read more »
Putin Keeps Losing All the Wars He Has Started
The word “war” is presently banned in the official Russian discourse on Ukraine, but in fact the “special military operation” launched on President Vladimir Putin’s order early morning February 24, includes several wars fought in different domains. The massive invasion into Ukraine constitutes the most kinetic of them, but on the highest level Putin imagines… Read more »
Putin’s War Is Stuck, Beware the Rising Risks
Data on the concentration of Russian troops was solid; the diplomatic offensive executed by Moscow was deliberately disagreeable; yet, many experts (myself including) refused to accept the proposition on the coming war as “inevitable”. Denials streaming from the Kremlin were never convincing, but President Vladimir Putin’s reputation as a shrewd pragmatist still clashed with the… Read more »
No Way around a Dangerous Confrontation with Putin’s Russia
I, along with many other commentators, believed until the very end that war in Ukraine was preventable and would ultimately not take place. Very sadly, and concerningly, I was wrong. Why did I hold out hope so long for the avoidance of war? What does the invasion of Ukraine tell us about Putin’s regime? And… Read more »
Putin’s Blackmail-War in Ukraine Continues Under Diplomatic Cover
The guns have so far remained silent on the snow-covered Russian-Ukrainian border, but there is certainly no peace there; a rather unusual war is in progress. It is unlike any other wars waged by Russia under the lengthy rule of President Vladimir Putin, who began his first presidential term with a war in Chechnya that… Read more »