Putin's defeats and threats

Bosko Jaksic / Photo: MIA

It's high time for diplomacy, but at this stage "the chances of a peace deal are minimal," as United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says. There is not even a truce in sight

While in the middle of this month Russian forces were rapidly retreating before a penetrating Ukrainian counter-offensive, President Vladimir Putin participated via video link in the opening ceremony of the Moscow Sun, the largest Ferris wheel in Europe.

A day later, the 140-meter-high wheel shared in some symbolic way the fate of Russian soldiers in northeastern Ukraine. It had to be closed due to technical problems, and visitors were refunded their tickets.

The Russian army, the second in the world, in the modernization of which Putin has invested huge resources in the past two decades, is not as powerful as it was thought. He was abandoning his positions in the Kharkiv region, leaving behind weapons and equipment.

The "special military operation" in Ukraine is proving to be incomparably more difficult than the interventions in Syria or the wars in Chechnya. Military strategists and planners in Moscow, who expected to enter Kyiv in just a few days, overestimated their own and underestimated Ukrainian capacities, determination and will.

From the denazification of the government and from the demilitarization of Ukraine - nothing. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's regime appears to be very stable, and the country, thanks to massive supplies from the West, is armed like never before after gaining independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Putin, for the first time since World War II, was forced to order a partial mobilization of approximately 300.000 reservists, although he remains under pressure from Russian nationalists, who are demanding a general mobilization to regain the initiative on the Ukrainian front. This violated Putin's unwritten agreement with the people, as the president assured Russians for seven months that despite the "special military operation" they could continue with their normal lives and that no one would be forced to fight in Ukraine.

The decision is an indirect confirmation that the strategic goals of the invasion were not achieved during the seven months, with a cost of 6.000 dead - which is the official figure from Moscow, and Western estimates are several times higher. Protests in Russian cities, where messages of "Send Putin to the trenches" were heard, and the dramatic purchase of plane tickets to leave the country, show that the mobilization is very unpopular.

Referendum-dum

It remains for the Kremlin to record as a success the "liberation" of the four secessionist creations from the east and south of Ukraine - Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye - which will vote in illegal referendums to join 15 percent of the Russian territory to the Russian Federation.

"We cannot, we do not have the moral right to hand over the people close to us to executioners, we cannot but respond to their sincere desire to decide their own fate," says Putin, but the annexation of parts of Donbas according to the Crimean model it cuts off any possibility of political dialogue with Ukraine and is an occasion for new dramatic escalations, because Kyiv will not accept the loss of sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Could this then be interpreted in Moscow as an attack on Russia, a justification for the use of "all available means" in defense of Russian territorial integrity? The answer is positive: "An attack on people will be an attack on Russia", according to the respected member of the Duma, Konstantin Kosachov.

Putin adds that he is not bluffing and repeats the accusation that the West wants to destroy Russia, that it is using "nuclear blackmail", considering the potential use of atomic weapons, and that the US, the European Union and Britain are encouraging Russia to launch military operations against Ukraine. "In its aggressive anti-Russian policy, the West has crossed all lines," warns Putin.

Putin should not be humiliated

The "irresponsible nuclear threat," as President Joe Biden has called it, is intended to dissuade the United States and its European allies from supporting Ukraine or accepting that President Zelensky enter into negotiations for a peace settlement that would be acceptable to Moscow. That is the rare strategic potential Putin has at his disposal, according to Gleb Pavlovsky, his former adviser.

The situation is worsening dramatically, and NATO's aggressive eastward expansion is nearing its climax. Those, like French President Emmanuel Macron, who have warned that Russia should not be "humiliated" or others who think it too dangerous for Putin to be cornered and wish for the fall of his regime and the defeat of Russia, are right.

Because force is the key source of Putin's legitimacy, it is logical to assume that he will not give up the strongest argument of his power. Therefore, his threats should be taken seriously.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz recently assessed that there are no signs that Putin will change his position. The war that has claimed thousands of lives in Ukraine, caused an estimated $350 billion in damages, shaken the global economy and created an energy and food crisis has brought the world into its most dangerous confrontation since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

It is high time for diplomacy, but against the offers of French or Turkish mediation "at this stage the chances of a peace agreement are minimal", as the Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres said. There is not even a truce in sight.

That's why the words of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, expressed on the podium of the General Assembly of the United Nations, seem reasonable, but at this moment hopeless: "We think that war will never have a winner, and a just peace process will not have a loser."

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