Let us dispell the great lie of the Russian crisis. Vladimir Putin is not acting out of humanitarian concern, to stop the imaginary genocide he puppets before his audience. Donbas is full of natural gas reserves, and it is these reserves which are a threat to Russia. Not NATO's missiles and planes, not the half dozen other figments of fear he dangles before the world, hoping that at least one will be swallowed. Gas. Enough gas that, were Ukraine to develop the resource they would stand free of Russia's influence entirely, able to not only supply themselves during the cold winters, but even excess to supply to Europe, further eroding Russia's flailing influence.
Putin's kleptocracy has failed to bring Russia into the 21st century. it is essentially a petrol state, because oligarchs have too hard a time stealing from a more complex supply chain. The monopoly on gas must be protected else Russia's already fragile economy will fail.
After gas, there is water. Putin miscalculated when he invaded Crimea in 2014, and Ukraine rightfully saw no reason to supply territory occupied by a hostile army with fresh water, building a dam to redirect the river to lands not occupied by Putin's army. Agriculture has collapsed on Crimea since 2014, and some estimates place the cost of water deliveries at $20 billion a year, greater than that of the education budget for the whole of Russia. To resolve this issue, Putin must take at least the southern coast of Ukraine east of the Dnepr river, from Meriupol' to Kherson. These areas are not pro Russian.
Putin has erred when he created the current crisis.
He failed to realize that the apparently fragmented NATO would set aside their squabbles to face a danger. This mistake stems from Putin's fundamental inability to understand democracy, and that in a democracy opinions can be argued over but unity can occur quickly when faced with a clear threat.
His failed in thinking that the Ukrainian people were fearful and weak - instead today finds them resilient and energized. This is rooted in that plutocratic Putin cannot understanding freedom. In Russia the common people cower in fear to the threat of government force, but in a free country like Ukraine, the people, when faced with a threat of violence against their homeland, do not cower in fear, but rise up and meet the danger out of desire to remain free.
Vladimir Putin failed to understand the Russian people, his own people. He thought that he could control the narrative through his control of the televised media. He fails to understand that young people don't watch television, and that his absurdly inept disinformation coming out Donbas would only be swallowed by the elderly. The young people, born after the fall, are on social media and have seen the debunking of Putin's lies. This failure to understand even his own people is a problem endemic to all autocratic regimes. No one dares tell a dictator bad news, no one dares to respond honestly to a survey of public opinion, no one dares to question the absurd election results. We saw a taste of this fear in his inner circle during the staged decision to declare the DNR\LNR, when Putin cut off any comments that were off-message. To Putin, this is a sign of his strength. However, it has given him an illusory mandate of the people, a feeling of a strong foundation of public support where only a few crumbling columns remain.
He fails to understand that the strength of the army is not in tanks and planes, but in the esprit de corps and resolve of his troops. His army does not want to attack Ukraine. I have worked alongside the officers within the Russian army, carrying out inspections under the START treaty. These are not people who are hungry for war. The morale of a conscript can be maintained if the threat is real and the cause is just. This cause is neither.
The association of retired generals admonished the attack on Ukraine in a paper published a few weeks ago, and reports from Belarus and elsewhere on the front line tell tales of an army without discipline, where soldiers are selling fuel and ammunition onto the black market, sometimes for profit, but sometimes for food and water which Putin has failed to supply his army with. The soldiers in the army know that their cause is not just, that their mission is not in service to mother Russia, but to their flailing autocrat.
Putin was right about one thing, in that there is a common bond between the Ukrainian and the Russian people. The Ukrainian people are what the Russians could become were they to break free of the kleptocratic autocracy that rules their country. Of course this is Putin's greatest fear - it is the reason he must invade, to squash the will of the Ukrainian people to resist his dictatorship.
It is also the reason that he must not invade, because such a spirit is not so easily quenched. Russia is not so powerful as it needs to be, with an economy smaller than California's, to quell resistance in a country the size of Texas. A country of 40 million, a country with a long memory and deeply held grievances against their northern neighbor's government, a country who has not forgotten the Holodomor, the mass deportations, the repression of prior generations.
ln eight short years Ukraine has gone from a few scattered shadows of an army to a well-trained and disciplined defense force, armed with modern equipment, trained in modern tactics, and ready to sacrifice in defense of their home.
The position today is Putin hoping that President Zelensky will cower in fear because Ukraine is surrounded by artillery and tanks. He depends on Ukraine ceding Donbas in the hope to avoid the greater conflict.
And this is the fourth critical error that Putin has made. Zelenski has turned out to be a far more competent statesman and leader and then one would have suspected, given his prior career as a comedian. Ukraine has knowledgeable generals who have been planning for an event like this for many years. Ukraine has the advice from NATO and Europe, as well as modern armaments to counter the Russian threat. Zelenski might not be the leader that many Ukrainians would have wanted in a circumstance like this, but his charisma and patriotism are exactly what Ukraine needs. He has prevented panic, held his country together, and stood strong to Putin, and to some of the European powers who think appeasement a better option.
Putin has misjudged the West, he misjudged Ukraine, he misjudged his own people, and has overextended himself. Invade, and Russia will bear costs beyond it's ability to pay. Retreat, and Putin will suffer humiliation perhaps beyond his strength to survive politically. Invade, and Putin has renewed the enmity of Ukraine for the Russian government for another generational memory. Putin is in a lose-lose scenario, unless he has some other card to play not yet considered. But just because Putin will lose does not mean Russia has to, for as much as Putin will deny it, Russia is not Putin.
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