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 »
Tag: Putin
Putin Is Staking His Political Future on Victory in Ukraine – and Has Little Incentive to Make Peace
Despite stop-and-start peace talks, a resolution to the brutal war in Ukraine appears distant. Major cities in Ukraine are faltering. Civilians, including children, are dying of shrapnel and glass wounds, exposure and thirst. At the same time, Ukraine’s resilience and a coordinated global response means the war is not ending as many expected before it… 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 »
A Popular Uprising Can Oust Putin
Putin’s place at the long table in the Kremlin is more insecure than ever, and even though he will cling to power, it is not inevitable that he will succeed. Fears that the so-called colour revolutions will spread to Russia have dogged Putin’s time in power. Colour revolutions in two of Russia’s neighbours, Georgia and… Read more »
Putin May Fall
We can be pretty sure that the likelihood of both a coup and a revolution in Russia is significantly higher today than it was a couple of months ago. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine looks like becoming a historic event with far-reaching consequences. Alongside the loss of human life and devastation in Ukraine, the Russian economy… 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 »
Why Putin is Losing – The Weakness of Personalist Dictatorship
When personalistic dictators go to war, they are more likely to miscalculate and lose than leaders of other types of regimes. Such failures can have dramatic consequences for the stability of their regime at home, as well as for the rest of the world. Russia’s grotesque invasion of Ukraine is one of the most horrific… 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, Xi, and World War III
Vladimir Putin is playing for high stakes against the US and its allies on the global scene. Since Xi Jinping does not play along, Putin has temporarily transformed a bipolar power system into a triangular game, with Xi in the middle. Yet Xi is the one that Biden fears most. China does not have and… Read more »
Turkey’s Difficult Balancing Act in the Ukraine Crisis
It’s not difficult to imagine Turkey’s President Erdogan watching Putin’s failures in Ukraine with a solid dose of schadenfreude. Putin has been the kingmaker in Syria since 2015 and Erdogan, not one for compromise, has had to negotiate with Putin to secure Turkey’s interests. The most critical of these has been Turkey’s opposition to Kurdish… Read more »