Russia Under Putin Is an Example of Self-Defeat
Paul Craig Roberts
Since 2014 I have been puzzled by the absence of a Russian foreign policy strategy. The Kremlin had the carrot–diplomacy–but no stick, the absence of which made the diplomacy ineffective. If the diplomacy failed, there was no backup plan.
We saw this in 2014 when Washington overthrew without Russian opposition the Russian-friendly government in Ukraine and installed an anti-Russian puppet government. Russian military intervention could easily have prevented the overthrow as the overthrow was not the product of an internal uprising but was an orchestration by an outside party.
The immediate consequence was that Crimea, the home of Russia’s Black Sea naval base, and Russian Donbas, which previous Soviet regimes had attached to Ukraine, voted overwhelmingly to be reincorporated into Russia. The Kremlin accepted the Crimean vote to save its naval base, but not the Donbas vote. Instead, Russian President Putin came up with the Minsk Agreement in which Donbas was to remain part of Ukraine but have some autonomy, such as independent police and judicial system to prevent the Russian citizens from being oppressed by the neo-Nazi elements of the US imposed Ukrainian government.
The Response of the Kremlin-deserted Donbas Russians was to declare two independent Republics: Donbas and Luhansk. The independent republics were partly occupied by Ukrainian forces, but their militias were able to mainly fend off the anti-Russian Ukrainian forces that came to stamp out Russian language and culture in Donbas.
Germany and France were designated the enforcers of the signed Minsk Agreement between the Donbas Russians and Ukraine, a new country created out of Washington’s breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Later both the chancellor of Germany and the president of France stated publicly that the Minsk Agreement was used to deceive the Kremlin.
In the eight years while the Kremlin ignored the obvious deceit, Washington built, equipped, and trained a large Ukrainian army. By the end of 2021 it was obvious that this army was about to invade the Donbas region despite the Minsk Agreement and reincorporate the two independent republics into Ukraine.
At this point the extremely slow thinkers in the Kremlin realized that they had a serious problem if the Ukrainians began slaughtering Russians in Donbas. This forced Russian action for which the Kremlin was totally unprepared militarily. Putin and Russian foreign minister Lavrov tried between December, 2021 and February 2022 to forestall the Ukrainian invasion of the Donbas republics by seeking a mutual security agreement with the West, but were cold-shouldered by Washington, NATO, and the EU. That left Putin with the only option–military intervention in Donbas.
But the Kremlin had made no preparation and had insufficient military forces. Putin had to rely on his friend, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group, a private military force. The Wagner Group had success against the Washington trained and equipped Ukrainian army, but soon found that the Kremlin had no strategy to win the war and tired of the casualties caused by Putin’s restrictions. A detachment marched on Moscow to protest the absence of a winning strategy. The corrupt and jealous Russian military misrepresented the protest to Putin as a rebellion. Prigozhin died in a mysterious plane crash, and the Wagner Group was broken up. Immediately, Russia suffered battleground reverses.
This forced Putin to raise an army, despite the opposition of his central bank director, but Putin left it a voluntary force as he feared that the Westernized Russian youth would rebel at conscription.
Think about this for a moment. Putin sat on his butt and let Washington overthrow a critical ally. He sat on his butt for 8 years while Ukrainian neo-Nazis battered Donbas Russians. Every year that passed taught Putin that his diplomacy wasn’t working, that events were heading to a military conflict, and he made no military preparations. Instead, he announced new Russian super weapons, thinking their existence would caution the West despite the fact that the Kremlin showed no interest in using them.
Putin has never acknowledged that he is at war with Ukraine, much less with the West, whose proxy Ukraine merely is. In Putin’s mind the war is a Special Military Operation confined to Donbas. Its purpose is to clear Donbas, again a part of Russia, of Ukrainian forces.
This Special Military Operation has continued for 4.5 years and has utterly destroyed belief in Russia’s military capability. The hard facts have pushed Putin into increasing unrealism. He refuses to acknowledge missile and drone strikes deep inside Russia, strikes that kill civilians, disrupt airports, and destroy Russian oil producing, refining, and storage facilities, resulting in long gasoline lines and importation of diesel fuel.
Some years ago, Putin declared that Russia would never again fight a war on her own territory. Russia has been doing so for 4.5 years, only Putin will not admit it. He says that the British and German missiles and drones fired from Ukraine with US and British targeting information over NATO countries air space are merely “terrorist operations” and do not constitute acts of war. Putin makes the same claim about the seizure of tankers carrying Russian oil on the high seas.
We are presented with a picture of a government whose leader refuses to acknowledge reality. In this sense, Putin and Trump are one and the same.
Even today there is no Kremlin strategy for winning the war. Instead, the Kremlin bleats incessantly that Russia prefers to end the war by negotiation. These bleats demonstrate a complete incapacity to think and to understand.
Gilbert Doctorow and John Helmer, two who closely watch the Russian scene, have come to the same conclusion that Putin doesn’t realize that Russia is at war. Recently, Doctorow thought that he saw indications that Putin had finally realized he had to actually defeat Ukraine and bring the conflict to an end before it spiraled out of control. Doctorow saw the shutdown of the Black Sea port of Odessa and the first Russian attacks on the land entrances into Ukraine as the Russian military and nationalist political forces forcing Putin into bringing the conflict to an end in Russian victory. But Doctorow is now unsure. Here is his latest:
“The main conclusion to be drawn is that [Putin has] no coherent strategy. There has been a half-step from war of attrition to imposing a sudden-death on Ukraine by strangulation, meaning cutting supply of all Western military materiel by land and sea. However, the recent attacks on the border crossings to Ukraine’s NATO neighbors to the west and northwest were obviously suspended as were attacks on the Ukrainian capital to allow the Baltic States, Norway and Denmark to meet Zelensky in Kiev on Sunday and sign contracts for supply of drones. And surely a similar suspension was made to allow British Prime Minister Andy Burnham to show up in Kiev for its Independence Day on Monday. Meanwhile, there have been no ‘consequences’ for Britain’s supplying the long range attack drones to Kiev responsible for destruction of refineries and logistics centers. And Press Secretary Peskov’s response to the agreement on supply of Storm Shadow manufacturing technology was almost meaningless – that it will damage relations. That is not much of a threat under present conditions.” https://gilbertdoctorow.substack.com/p/judging-freedom-edition-of-26-august?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1203055&post_id=212846169&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=dx5km&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Meanwhile toothless Russia “Slams Europe’s Willful Blindness to Ukraine’s Turmoil as Fatal Error.” What Sputnik should be slamming is Putin’s FATAL ERROR to understand that Russia is confronted with an existential war and Russia’s refusal to acknowledge it and respond is leading to nuclear war. https://sputnikglobe.com/20260826/kremlin-calls-europeans-unwillingness-to-notice-problems-in-ukraine-leadership-mistake-1124631908.html
Meanwhile toothless Russia describes its abandonment of its naval and air bases in Syria as a “reorganization.” Whatever words the Kremlin puts on it, the West sees Russian retreat.
Some years ago I wrote that Washington would expand the attack on Russia from Ukraine to the former central Asian provinces of the Soviet Union. Recently we saw an effort, defeated by internal opposition, by Washington to again send the former Georgian province of Russia, now an independent country, into conflict against Russia. Prior to this a Russian military force had to be sent to Kazakhstan to still Washington-stirred waters. And now we have the Russian Foreign ministry’s complaint that Washington is blackmailing–I would say bribing with bagfuls of money–Armenia to Oust Russia From South Caucasus. https://sputnikglobe.com/20260826/west-blackmailing-armenia-to-oust-russia-from-south-caucasus—russian-foreign-ministry-1124632195.html
Putin complains. Stalin would have eliminated Armenia.
The Putin government has convinced Washington and Europe that if it requires military force Russia will not defend herself. Putin has convinced the world that Russia is a paper tiger.
Russia will prevail in Donbas. But this is not where the war is. By tolerating a conflict for 4.5 years, Putin has let the war vastly expand to the point that NATO is conducting long-range attacks deep inside Russia. Clearing Donbas of Ukrainian forces will not stop these attacks. For 4.5 years Putin has done nothing that would prevent Ukraine from continuing the war.