EVGENY SAVOSTIANOV
What could Vladimir Putin have been thinking?
Since the start of the Ukraine war more than 18 months ago, many have wondered why Russia launched a unilateral war of aggression against its western neighbor — and why, despite grievous battlefield losses and major strategic miscalculations in the months since, the Kremlin continues to persist in this effort.
The answer can be found in a series of profound miscalculations that have been made by the Kremlin in recent years.
First, Putin has, over time, become obsessed with initiating and leading a global campaign against the West, the way the communist regime of the USSR did. His attempts to simply coopt democratic institutions have proven incompatible with his desire for lifelong rule, despite the pliability of many European leaders.
So the Russian president and his followers have persuaded themselves that a civilizational war between Russia and the West is both necessary and inescapable. In their eyes, the current struggle for Ukraine — once the seat of the Russian state — represents the opening salvo in such an effort.
That project, however, has failed.
While the Kremlin hoped in theory to rally a broad anti-Western front in support of its efforts, it has had tremendous practical difficulty in doing so. As a result, it has been forced to rely on assistance from a handful of rogue states such as Syria, Iran and North Korea to continue to fuel its war effort.
Second, Russia failed to recognize a recent hardening of Western attitudes. For years, Moscow had successfully wielded its “energy weapon” and nuclear blackmail to intimidate countries in the West. But even before the Ukraine war, European attitudes had begun to change as more and more policymakers grasped that the Kremlin was insatiable. They realized that it would no longer do to succumb to Russian intimidation.
Since February 2022, Ukraine’s heroic, steadfast resistance to Russian aggression and the massive difficulties experienced by the Russian military have only helped to reinforce for Western leaders that they must not retreat from the Kremlin.
Third, Russia’s plans for a rapid, overwhelming takeover of Ukraine betrayed a profound misunderstanding of the mood of Ukrainians themselves. In the run-up to the conflict, Russia’s president had managed to convince himself that, due to his government’s long-running efforts to subvert their society, Ukrainians writ large saw themselves not as an independent nation but as “Malorossy,” southern Russians, who needed to be reconnected to the Fatherland.
In so doing, Putin repeated the mistake made by the generals of the White movement of the Russian Revolutionary era. He assumed that his soldiers would be met with flowers instead of bullets. Russia’s forces were thus woefully unprepared for the ferocity and extent of Ukraine’s resistance.
Fourth, Putin did not have an accurate understanding of the true state of his army. After years of propaganda, showy parades and rosy pronouncements by his generals, Russia’s president was misled into believing that his country wielded a first-rate military, capable of waging and winning a continental conflict. The actual performance of the Russian military on the Ukrainian battlefield has showcased something very different, both to the Russians and to the rest of the world.
Finally, Putin did not have a grasp of the true state of the Russian economy. Having long relied on commerce with a compliant Europe, Moscow was unprepared for the abrupt, extensive economic isolation that has resulted from its war on Ukraine. Even now, Russian officials publicly extol the resilience of Russia’s economic sector and minimize the effect of Western fiscal and technological pressure. But their bluster masks a more sober reality: Western sanctions are only now beginning to bite, but they have already affected the Russian economy profoundly and will continue to do so.
All that leaves Russia with precious few options. Having profoundly alienated the West, the country now faces a future of profound isolation — or even of subservience to China. Despite the “no limits” partnership between Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Chinese see Russia as a country in big trouble, or even potentially as a vassal.
Already, we are seeing the practical consequences of this uneven partnership, as Beijing supplants Moscow as the dominant power in Russia’s traditional sphere of influence of Central Asia and the Caucasus and creates new pathways to Europe there, bypassing Russia. This trend is liable to accelerate as the effects of Putin’s disastrous miscalculations become more and more pronounced.
For all that, Russian collapse is not inevitable. History teaches us that every successive Russian leader ends up adopting policies that are the reverse of his predecessor’s. Thus, while Vladimir Putin may have put the country on the road to ruin, his successor may right the Russian ship of state once Putin is out of the picture. That would mean a brighter future for Russia — and for everyone else.
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