He Ain’t Russian Around No More

“Shall we forge ahead and defeat the enemy?... Or on the contrary,

shall we prepare for a difficult but necessary compromise?”

Pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov.

You don’t have to be a rocket (or missile) scientist to know Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not going according to Vladimir Putin’s plan. It’s an ugly secret that is fairly obvious to Russia’s own military personnel. For example, “Alexander Khodakovsky, a Russian militia commander in Donetsk [eastern Ukraine], appeared on Russian state television calling for the use of nuclear weapons because he doesn't believe Russia has the resources to win the war in Ukraine.” CNN, December 14th. In early December, even Putin admitted that wrapping up his special military operation (his euphemism for the war) could be a “lengthy process.” Putin himself has also raised the specter of Moscow’s possible abandonment of the “never as a first strike” policy over its use of nuclear warheads, tactical or otherwise.

Clearly, Putin doesn’t want to talk about the war anymore, perhaps hoping that his people do not start counting body bags being sent back from the front, perhaps one of the reasons Russia’s call-up of up to 300,000 “reservists” for deployment in Ukraine relied heavily on young men from outside of the largest cities. According to the December 14th Associated Press, “Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed Monday [12/12] that Putin would be skipping the annual news conference for the first time in 10 years. He didn’t give a reason, but many commentators ascribed it to Putin’s reluctance to face unpleasant questions about what he calls Russia’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine.

“The annual news conference has been used by the Kremlin to polish Putin’s image. The tightly stage-managed program, televised live, lasted up to 4½ hours and featured Putin talking about a wide variety of domestic and foreign policy issues… In a commentary on Twitter, the British Defense Ministry said: ‘The press conference has become a significant fixture in Putin’s calendar of public engagement and has frequently been used as an opportunity to demonstrate the supposed integrity of Putin.

“‘Although questions are almost certainly usually vetted in advance, the cancellation is likely due to increasing concerns about the prevalence of anti-war feeling in Russia. Kremlin officials are almost certainly extremely sensitive about the possibility that any event attended by Putin could be hijacked by unsanctioned discussion about the ‘special military operation.’ ‘… Putin also canceled another annual fixture, a televised call-in show on which he takes questions from the public to nurture his father-of-the-nation image…

“The Kremlin has muzzled any criticism of its action in Ukraine from the liberal antiwar camp, shutting down news outlets and criminalizing the spread of any information that departs from the official view. But it has faced increasingly vocal criticism from Russian hard-liners who have denounced the president as weak and indecisive and called for ramping up strikes on Ukraine.” Hardliners mean: “use tactical nuclear weapons now!”

Word from those able to examine the wreckage of Russian missiles, now being used with virtual impunity on obvious civilian targets in the biggest cities, is that they most of there are decades old, probably drawn on stockpiles no one really believed would ever be used again. Moscow seems increasingly reliant on munitions from Iran and perhaps even North Korea. A few Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian military airfields slip by as “terrorist attacks” or simple accidents in Russian media, where these are even reported.

Russia’s latest strategic change has been to demoralize Ukrainians by massively hitting their homes, hospitals but most of all critical water and energy infrastructure. No pretense. No fear of “war crimes” for purposely targeting civilians, perhaps remembering WWII allied strikes against Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were prosecuted either. Putin was fully expecting to bring these staunch resisting holdouts to their knees, because outside of wearing these civilians down – perhaps with the assistance of the growing resistance in NATO nations of a never-ending need to finance Kyiv defense… while paying vastly higher prices to heat their home in a cold winter.

But militarily, Putin will do everything in his power to rain missiles and drone-strikes down on Ukrainian citizens. This brutal escalation of violence has moved the United States to escalate the nature of the defensive weapons it is making available to Kyiv. “The Biden administration is finalizing plans to send the Patriot missile defense system [pictured above] to Ukraine… Amid a barrage of Russian attacks, Ukraine has been calling for the US to send the advanced air defense system that is widely considered one of the most capable long-range weapons to defend airspace against incoming missiles, as well as some aircraft. It would be the most effective long-range defensive weapons system sent to the country, and officials say it will help secure airspace for NATO nations in eastern Europe.” CNN, December 14th.

If Putin’s decimation of civilian targets in Ukraine doesn’t work, Putin is faced with limited alternatives: nukes or compromise, and Putin hates the humiliation that compromise would carry, even if he spins the result as victory. Drawing the war out beyond 2023 is probably a lose-lose for Vladimir. So…

I’m Peter Dekom, and while ending the Ukraine war would provide massive economic benefits for most of the rest of the world, the means of getting to a reasonable conclusion is fraught with danger.