Gilbert Doctorow Wonders Why Putin Refuses to Win a Conflict Now in Its 5th Year
Putin, the paper tiger?
Over the past several days, most of the youtube podcasts dealing with the Russia – Ukraine war have presented lurid, sensationalist scenarios of how Russia is about to go on the rampage following the latest provocation from Ukraine – the precise and multiple drone attacks on a women’s college dormitory in what the Western press calls ‘Russia occupied Ukraine’ and the Russian press calls the Russian Federation province (oblast) of Lugansk, which took place on 22 May. The Ukrainian attack at night took the lives of 21 teenagers and sent 40 more to hospitals. It outraged the Russian public.
As we know, the Russian response on the night of 23-24 May was a vast missile attack on the Ukrainian capital consisting primarily of unstoppable land, air and sea launched hypersonic missiles, including the iconic new Oreshnik. We were told that the targets had been military control and command centers in Kiev and nearby suburbs. We were further told that a Russian follow-up attack on the political decision-making centers in Kiev requires the evacuation of the diplomatic community from Kiev and of all foreigners in the city center lest they fall victim to the mayhem about to be unleashed.
However, in the days since absolutely nothing has happened. The Americans abandoned their Kiev embassy. The CIA is reported to have pulled out its staff. But the European Union insisted that it would keep all diplomatic personnel in Kiev in defiance of the Russian order and to form, in effect, a human shield to protect the Ukrainian government from attack.
To all appearances it would now appear that Putin has retreated.
In last night’s main news program, it appeared as though we are back to Putin the Timid or Putin the Paper Tiger. His press conference in Astana at departure from his state visit to Kazakhstan was extensively shown on TV yesterday and it was just more of the same old blah, blah: talking about the cynical west that has ignored the tragedy of the Ukrainian terror attack on the women’s college in Lugansk and about the fuss in Romania over the downed supposedly Russian drone that hit an apartment building. The idea that this timid man is now demanding total capitulation of Kiev without any compromises and is ready to strike Europe with nukes at any moment, as my Putin cheerleaders colleagues in the Alt Media were saying on air Friday, now looks like disinformation rather than helpful analysis to serve the general public.
What Russian state television did show was more of the same Russian bombing of railway stations, of tiny bridges over tiny rivers somewhere or other in the Ukrainian countryside. Not a single bridge crossing the Dnieper has been taken out. And we were treated to the standard fare videos of Russian soldiers manning artillery and launching drones somewhere in the 1200 km long front while looking out for the Ukrainian attack drones being sent their way. This type of warfare is taking Russia nowhere certainly not to a victory on the ground in the coming days or weeks.
Meanwhile, this morning’s Business FM radio station had a long discussion of the shortages of gasoline for cars in the Crimea and other Russian regions. We we know why there are shortages: it is due to the successful Ukrainian drone attacks on key refineries deep in the heartland of Russia. And that will continue and get worse the longer Putin’s attack on Kiev and destruction of the Zelensky junta is delayed.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026
Putin takes another ineffectual step
Moscow moves to take Baltic states to UN court over crackdown on Russians
https://www.rt.com/russia/640780-russia-baltic-states-discrimination-un-court/