Rusia

A Defeat for Moscow Won’t Be a Clear Victory for the West

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a strategic blunder by invading Ukraine. He has misjudged the political tenor of the country, which was not waiting to be liberated by Russian soldiers. He has misjudged the United States, the European Union, and a number of countries—including Australia, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea—all of which were capable of collective action before the war and all of which are now bent on Russia’s defeat in Ukraine. The United States and its allies and partners are imposing harsh costs on Moscow. Every war is a battle for public opinion, and Putin’s war in Ukraine has—in an age of mass-media imagery—associated Russia with an unprovoked attack on a peaceful neighbor, with mass humanitarian suffering, and with manifold war crimes. At every turn, the ensuing outrage will be an obstacle to Russian foreign policy in the future.

With signs that Moscow’s initial invasion strategy has not gone according to plan, the crisis in Ukraine has reached a critical moment.

It has not been a good five days for Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian resistance has been much stronger and more effective than he could have imagined. His own forces have been much less effective, sometimes almost absurdly so. And he has awakened a united Western response which none of us could have imagined would happen until very recently.

Putin’s decision to elevate the alert status of Russia’s nuclear forces is both a signal of how much Ukraine means to the Russian leader, and a deterrent against future Western actions. European allies must continue to present a unified response, while also exploring opportunities for de-escalation.

An assault on Kyiv will be bloody for both sides. But for the civilian population it will be devastating.

It is only a matter of time before Russian forces reach and complete the encirclement of Kyiv. Russian armoured units have advanced to the northern outskirts of the city, while satellite images show a build-up of 150 attack and transport helicopters in southern Belarus, less than a 100 miles from Kyiv, and large military convoys on their way to the capital. Although there has been confusion regarding the invasion aims, a consensus is emerging among Western officials and commentators that Russian forces will probably seek to secure key government administrative buildings and remove Ukraine’s incumbent government.

As the fighting in Ukraine intensifies in its largest cities, fears are rising that a war of attrition will mean an escalation of violence and the use of ever more deadly weapons.

On Saturday, a CNN correspondent captured footage of what appeared to be a TOS-1 heavy flamethrower system being transported to the Ukrainian border near the Russian city of Belgorod.

The head of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, has suggested that the International Space Station (ISS) could fall out of orbit and crash into the United States or Europe as a result of sanctions on Russia.

The comments came following US president Joe Biden’s announcement of new sanctions that “will degrade their [Russia’s] aerospace industry, including their space programme”.

They’re mysterious, they’re disruptive, and they’ve picked their side in the war pitting Russia against Ukraine.

The hacker collective Anonymous has claimed credit for several cyberattacks that took down Russian government websites and state-backed news outlets in recent days.

Currently, Russia provides Germany with 55 percent of the natural gas, 50 percent of the coal, and 35 percent of the oil consumed by its inhabitants.

On Thursday, Germany’s Economy Minister Robert Habeck stated that he is not in favor of banning energy imports from Russia as they are necessary to prevent prices from “rising further” and guarantee “social peace” in Germany.

The Kremlin signaled that it is willing to negotiate surrender terms with Ukraine in the midst of ongoing attacks on the country by Russian Forces in a statement by Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov at about 2 pm today. According to Peskov, President Putin is now willing to speak to Ukrainian President Zelinsky about the country disarming, de-coupling from the West, and cleansing itself of “pro-Nazi” people.

As Russia ramps up its invasion of Ukraine, it’s increasingly obvious that Europe and the United States need to build resiliency against further hostile actions from the Kremlin such as the weaponization of energy. Western states have been left scrambling for nonmilitary interventions—but the problem for NATO is that European allies are far more sensitive to economic sanctions against Russia due to their greater fiscal and trade exposure to Russia. And worryingly, they still lean on Moscow as a major energy supplier—particularly of natural gas. Washington needs to break this dependency and more broadly help soften the economic blow to Europe.