- reporter, Paul Kirby
- reporter, BBC News
photo source, Getty Images
President Vladimir Putin still describes the war in Ukraine, the largest invasion of Europe since World War II, as a ‘special military operation’
On February 24 last year (local time), Russian President Vladimir Putin sent 200,000 troops into Ukraine, thinking he could take the capital city of Kiev within days and bring down the Ukrainian administration.
However, this was a mistake.
Putin’s initial invasion plans apparently failed, including several humiliating retreats after the war broke out. But Russia has not yet lost the war.
Putin’s initial goal?
Even now, Putin describes the war in Ukraine, the largest invasion of Europe since World War II, as a “special military operation.”
It is not an all-out war that has bombed civilians across Ukraine and made some 13 million refugees or displaced people abroad.
Last year, Putin approved the independence of eastern Ukraine, which had been occupied by pro-Russian rebels since 2014, and a few days after that, on February 24, he invaded Ukraine under the pretext of “de-militarization and de-Naziization,” not military occupation.
He also declared that he would protect those oppressed by the Ukrainian government, including genocide over the past eight years. However, this is just groundless Russian propaganda.
Putin also added another goal of neutralizing Ukraine, saying he would prevent NATO from gaining a foothold in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, though Putin did not speak publicly, the biggest objective in this war was to oust Ukraine’s current administration.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky once said that “the enemy targeted me first and my family second,” and according to Ukrainian presidential aides, Russian forces attempted to storm the presidential residence twice.
Russia’s claim that Ukrainian Nazis committed genocide is completely inconsistent, but Russia’s state news agency Ria Novosti has stated that “de-Naziization is inevitably de-Ukrainization.”
It means erasing virtually all of modern Ukrainian history.
Indeed, Putin has refused to recognize Ukraine as an independent state over the past several years, with statements dating back to the late ninth century that “Russians and Ukrainians were one people.”
How has Putin’s goals changed?
With retreats from Kiu and northern Chernihiv a month into the invasion, Putin’s goals for this war have been greatly reduced.
Accordingly, the main goal has changed to the “liberation” of the Donbass region, which includes the industrial zones of eastern Ukraine, Lugansk and Donetsk.
Later, they also retreated from Kharkiv in the northeast and Kherson in the south, but the Russians did not revise these goals.
So far, however, Russia has not achieved much of its goal.
As the war unfolded unexpectedly, President Putin was unable to properly control any of the provinces of Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia, and rushed to announce the annexation of the four provinces in September last year.
photo source, Getty Images
Putin commemorates the annexation of Ukrainian territory. At the top of the screen it says “together forever”
Meanwhile, President Putin also announced a mobilization order during this war. Of course, it was limited to 300,000 reserve troops, not a full-scale mobilization order, but it was the first mobilization order issued to Russia after World War II.
How is the current situation? As a war of attrition continues along an 850km front, Russia is not making much progress.
The war, which Putin expected to be swift, has become a protracted one in which Western leaders have decided that Ukraine must win. In this situation, neutralization of Ukraine is now realistically far away.
President Putin also warned in December that the war “could be a long process” but added that Russia’s goal was not to “spin the flywheel of military conflict” but rather to end it.
What did Putin do?
Perhaps the biggest success Putin can claim is the overland connection between Crimea and the mainland, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. That is, they no longer have to rely on bridges across the Kerch Strait.
Putin, who called the occupation of the northern part of Crimea, including Mariupol and Melitopol, “an important result for Russia,” declared that the Sea of Azov, inside the Kerch Strait, had become “Russian inland sea,” emphasizing that even Peter the Great hadn’t accomplished it.
photo source, Getty Images
The Kerch Strait Bridge exploded in October last year. Bridge connecting Crimea with mainland Russia
Has Putin Failed?
Except for the overland occupation of Crimea, Russia’s bloody war for no reason is a disaster for Russia as well as Ukraine.
So far Russia has done little more than expose the brutality and incompetence of its forces.
While cities like Mariupol were being bombed to ashes, stories of war crimes against civilians in Bucha, near Kiiu, were circulating, and reports of Russian state-sponsored instigation of genocide emerged.
But Russia’s biggest failure is in the military sector:
- In November of last year, Russian forces withdrew from Kherson across the Dnipro River. This is a strategic failure.
- At the beginning of the war, a 64 km long convoy of armored vehicles stopped near Kieu. This is a material transport failure.
- On New Year’s Eve, Ukrainian missile strikes in Makiyivka in the eastern province of Donetsk killed many Russian soldiers. This is an espionage failure.
- In April of last year, the cruiser ‘Moscow’ of the Russian Black Sea Fleet sank. This is a defensive failure. The same goes for the bombing that paralyzed the Kerch Strait Bridge in October of the same year for several weeks.
Meanwhile, Russia’s warnings to the West not to support Ukraine have been overshadowed by Ukraine’s promise to support it “forever” in its fight against Russia.
In addition, the Ukrainian artillery is gaining more strength with the promise of support for the German tank ‘Leopard 2’ as well as the powerful high-speed mobile artillery rocket system (HIMARS).
But this war is not over.
Fighting over the eastern Donbass region is still ongoing. This year, Russia occupied the Soledar region and occupied Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, hoping to use this as a springboard to recapture major cities in the west that had retreated last fall.
Despite the Russian army’s fierce attack, Ukrainian forces are defending Bahmut to the end.
Experts predict that Putin will tighten control not only in Donbass, but also in four regions that he has already declared his territory.
In fact, if he wants, Putin can prolong this war by extending the mobilization order. Russia is a nuclear power, and Putin has already indicated that he is prepared to use nuclear weapons if necessary to protect Russia and not to lose occupied territory in Ukraine.
“Russia will use every available weapon system, and this is not a bluff,” Putin warns.
In addition, Ukraine claims that Russia is pushing for the resignation of the pro-Western government by launching an offensive against Transnistria, a pro-Russian separatist region in Moldova, which shares the border with Ukraine.
Has Putin been hit?
Now 70, Putin is doing his best not to associate himself with these military fiascos, but his authority, at least outside of Russia, has been shattered. Now Putin seldom leaves the borders of Russia.
How is the situation in Russia? Sure, the budget deficit has skyrocketed and oil and natural gas imports have fallen sharply, but Russia’s economy appears to be enduring a series of Western sanctions.
Meanwhile, it is not easy to gauge Putin’s support in Russia.
It’s very dangerous to speak out in Russia, with prison sentences for anyone spreading “fake news” about the Russian military. Indeed, anyone who opposes the Russian leadership either fled the country or is imprisoned, as is Alexei Navali, the leading opposition leader.
photo source, Getty Images
Putin has made stopping Ukraine from joining NATO a priority
Ukraine close to the West
The sparks of this war can be traced back to 2013.
At the time, Russia pressured Ukraine’s pro-Russian president to break the trade deal with the European Union. In response, mass protests erupted in Ukraine, which eventually led to the resignation of the president.
Later, when Ukraine adopted a pro-Western stance, Russia annexed Crimea and took control of parts of the eastern region.
And four months after the Russian invasion, the EU granted Ukraine candidate state status, and Ukraine is demanding rapid approval.
Putin was also desperate to block Ukraine from joining NATO, falsely claiming that NATO was to blame for the war.
However, prior to the outbreak of the war, Ukraine reportedly reached a tentative agreement with Russia not to join NATO. Also, in March of last year, President Zelensky proposed that Ukraine would remain a non-aligned, non-nuclear state, stating that “(that Ukraine’s entry into NATO is realistically difficult) is the truth and I cannot help but admit it.”
Is this war NATO’s responsibility?
NATO members are increasingly supporting missiles, artillery and drones to turn the tide, as well as air defense systems to defend Ukrainian cities.
However, we cannot blame NATO for this war. NATO’s expansion is a response to the Russian threat, with Sweden and Finland applying for membership after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Meanwhile, there are voices within Europe that accept Russia’s claim to criticize NATO’s eastward movement.
Before the war in Ukraine, President Putin called on NATO to withdraw troops and military infrastructure from Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, back to the “1997 borderline”.
Putin’s claim is that the West has broken its 1990 promise that NATO “will not extend eastwards one inch.”
However, this was prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that promise to then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev only referred to East Germany in the context of a unified Germany.
Later, former President Gorbachev also said at the time that “the topic of NATO expansion has never been discussed.”
NATO argues that Russia had no intention of deploying troops along its eastern border until it illegally annexed Crimea in 2014.