On Putin - Fred Kaplan in NYRB:

‘The most stunning geopolitical surprise of the past year is how poorly the Russian military has been fighting in Ukraine. When Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion in February 2022, everyone—including the US intelligence analysts who had predicted it—assumed that Volodymyr Zelensky’s government in Kyiv would fall within a few weeks or even days and be replaced by a Moscow-bred puppet regime. Some anticipated that a long insurgency war might then follow, but no one was impetuous enough to guess that nearly a year later the Ukrainians would be not only fighting the Russians to a standstill but pushing them back on nearly every front.’

(…)

‘Galeotti notes that Moscow overloads its army with weapons but allots too little money and attention to the mundane stuff of logistics—spare parts, food, water, and the trucks to transport them—thus leaving supply lines vulnerable and making offensive operations unsustainable. Junior officers receive rote training, so they’re unprepared to take the initiative—a deliberate policy to keep them from rebelling against senior officers, though as a consequence, campaigns can plunge into chaos if they don’t go as planned. Combine all this with widespread hazing of enlisted men, ramshackle barracks, poor nutrition, and low pay, and it should have been foreseeable that while today’s Russian soldiers might be roused to defend the motherland, they’re lackluster at invading other countries.’

(…)

‘Putin’s first test, the first of his wars, was in Chechnya, the breakaway republic. Yeltsin had started this war in 1994, assured by his generals that the rebels could be brought to heel “by a single parachute regiment, in two hours.” The offensive turned into a debacle because of untrained officers, underfunded troops, and broken supply lines. Yeltsin doubled down with more bombing and shelling, to no avail. Putin vowed in his inauguration speech to restore Russia as “a great, powerful, mighty state” and brought in genuine reformers (Yeltsin’s generals tended to be corrupt hacks intent on little more than kowtowing) who ordered their troops to encircle Chechnya’s capital of Grozny methodically, suppress rebel fire, and never move too far ahead of supply lines. Just as crucially, Putin censored what had been a remarkably free and fearless mass media in Moscow, enabling him to control the narrative about the war on the home front. Still, even in his phase of the war, Putin managed to put down the rebellion only by granting Chechnya more autonomy than it had had in the previous two centuries.’

(…)

‘One eye-opening example that Galeotti cites: Russian soldiers, like those in tsarist and Soviet days, had worn rectangular cloths wrapped around their feet; starting in 2013, they were given socks. All in all, the reforms, Galeotti writes, “undoubtedly created a much leaner, more effective and responsive military.”’

(…)

‘Then came the prelude to Putin’s grand illusions—his annexation of Crimea and incursion into eastern Ukraine. In February 2014 Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, fled to Russia under threat of impeachment after scuttling plans to align his country with the European Union. Western-leaning democrats were installed and soon after elected in his place. Putin was deeply committed to keeping Ukraine in Moscow’s orbit, and he was worried that if Ukraine joined NATO (a promise that President George W. Bush had made in 2008, though without setting a timetable), Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, with its main port in Sevastopol, could fall under the control of the US-led military alliance. So he ordered Special Operations forces to seize Crimea.
The campaign succeeded in a matter of hours with scarcely a shot fired. The only casualties were two Ukrainian soldiers and one Cossack volunteer; no Russians were injured. Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev had bestowed Crimea on Ukraine in 1954 to celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of Ukrainian independence, but it was a symbolic gift; the only real political entity at the time was the Soviet Union. Even after the USSR’s collapse, Crimea remained a favorite vacation spot for Russians; many, if not most, Crimeans regarded themselves as Russian.’

(…)

‘But Putin (and Galeotti’s sources, as he now realizes) underestimated the intense nationalism that had taken hold among many Ukrainians, even those in Russian-speaking areas, during the quarter-century since their declaration of national independence—a declaration that presaged the Soviet Union’s breakup.
He and Russian intelligence analysts also failed to notice the Ukrainian army’s increased spending, recruiting, and training since the incursions of 2014. And so, to a degree that few expected, the Ukrainian army joined the fight in Donbas.
At that point Putin could have chosen to escalate or withdraw; he chose to escalate, adopting the view—which he did not hold alone—that the pro-Russia militias “could not be allowed to fail.” Over the next several months, Putin sent 10,000 Russian troops to fight in, and for, Donbas. Ukraine counterescalated, and the conflict settled into a slogging stalemate of trench warfare, sniping, and shelling. Between 2014 and the end of 2021, more than 14,000 people, including roughly 500 Russian soldiers, died in this war. Then, as Galeotti puts it, “Putin decided that it was time to break the stalemate.”’

(…)

‘He was, of course, mistaken on all counts. A coordinated, multipronged assault of armor, infantry, and air against a well-prepared defense turned out to be very different from a simple thrust against a peninsula whose residents for the most part welcomed the takeover. The Russian military had made great strides in the previous decade, but they weren’t as great as Putin imagined. Finally, his aggression rallied the Western alliance to greater unity and higher defense spending than it had mustered in decades.’

(…)

‘As Galeotti observes, “common sense” should have dissuaded Putin from invading Ukraine. At the start of 2022, he was “winning a bloodless war.” The looming presence of Russian troops on the border was scaring foreign investors away from Ukraine. A blockade of the ports at Mariupol and Berdyansk, which he had imposed the previous spring, was delaying and discouraging commercial trade, further tightening the screws on Ukraine’s economy. Meanwhile diplomats from all the major powers were flocking to the Kremlin to negotiate with Putin—as a peer, face to face—on how to ease tensions and build confidence; they were even willing make concessions on the composition of NATO and other concerns of his about Russian security. Moscow was once again at the center of international dealmaking. Then Putin blew it with his “fateful over-reach.”’

(…)

‘In spite of these miscalculations, Putin may well keep his grip on his country. There is no politburo or any constitutional process to oust him; if he is overthrown, it will likely be by a military coup, especially given his long and growing tensions with the Russian officer corps. It is, of course, a big unknown whether his successor will be more or less intent on conquering Ukraine and inflaming hostility toward the West. Galeotti is intriguingly optimistic. The Russian army will face serious manpower shortages, due in part to anger over this war’s horrors, in part to demographics; there are, he writes, “simply put, not enough young men” to swell the army to imperial proportions. Nor will the Russian economy’s stagnation (which the war has deepened) allow a new imperialist to keep up with the Western militaries’ surge in spending (also a product of the war). Finally, Galeotti foresees a new generation of Russians less traumatized by the Soviet Union’s collapse and therefore “more pragmatic, less emotional in their attitudes toward the West.” Some future Russian leader may well adopt a more pragmatic view, but how far in the future—and how pragmatic? If Putin had been as pragmatic as many thought him to be, he wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine, so who knows where his successor’s mind may drift?’

(…)

‘Is it too soon to write Putin’s political obituary or at least to size up his legacy? Galeotti’s conclusion, I think, has this right: Had he been content with building a strong nation within its own borders rather than chasing fantasies of empire, Putin would likely have been remembered as a successful state-builder. Instead, for years and perhaps decades…Russia will still be recovering from the damage caused by his overreach…the deep, painful scars of Putin’s wars.’

Read the article here.

This is a very good, insightful article that demythologizes many of Putin’s decisions. Also, it helps us to understand where the overreach came from.

Demography plays a role; money plays a role. Putin underestimated the response of the West, NATO needed an enemy to be relevant again, the same can be said about the EU, maybe a little less so, but still, also the EU needs an enemy. Who doesn’t?

How is the overreach going to end? The US and its allies are careful not to cross certain borders, a graceful defeat of Putin is preferable to a total humiliation.
Putin himself might have reached the conclusion that he was winning a bloodless war and that he should have been happy enough with that. After approximately 120,000 deaths so far, he seems not to have many options.

Perhaps his advisors should study Vietnam.