{"id":73091,"date":"2022-06-09T06:00:34","date_gmt":"2022-06-08T20:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=73091"},"modified":"2022-06-15T15:57:47","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T05:57:47","slug":"why-putin-might-be-pleased-with-the-results-of-his-war-in-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/why-putin-might-be-pleased-with-the-results-of-his-war-in-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Putin might be pleased with the results of his war in Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As we reflect on the 100-day mark of the Russo-Ukrainian war and what we\u2019ve learned, we need to understand that the West has fundamentally misunderstood Russia and continues to do so, argues Kyle Wilson, visiting fellow at the Centre for European Studies and former Australian diplomat who had postings in Russia, China and Poland.<\/p>\n

This is why many in the commentariat are failing to appreciate that Russian President Vladimir Putin is probably happy with how his invasion of Ukraine is turning out, he says.<\/p>\n

The Western foreign policy community has assumed for a long time that Russia under Putin had similar notions of what it means to be a world power, had more or less accepted the rules of the post\u2013World War II international order, and was moving\u2014albeit with setbacks\u2014on a similar neo-liberal economic trajectory.<\/p>\n

But, argues Wilson, something completely different has been going on in Putin\u2019s mind. He has only been marginally interested in building stability and prosperity as the West would understand it.\u00a0 Rather, his entire project has been about building Russia\u2019s ability to be a coercive, expansionist and undeniably great power, with control concentrated in the hands of one person.<\/p>\n

The Russian translation of \u2018great power\u2019 is velikaya derzhava<\/em>, the second part of which is a cognate of a verb that means to seize or to hold, and Putin\u2019s worldview represents a continuum of Russia\u2019s imperial mythos.<\/p>\n

Wilson points to the work of historian Stephen Kotkin, who has calculated that, over a period of about 450 years, Russia expanded outwards at a rate of 100 to 150 square kilometres a day, in the process engulfing 184 different nationalities or ethnic groups.<\/p>\n

And that expansion continues, Wilson says: Russia now claims roughly half of the Arctic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This imperial worldview has always been in evidence, he says.<\/p>\n

For example, in 2005, Putin established a commission to rewrite Russian history textbooks. \u2018It produced a textbook for history teachers. In that book was the remarkable paragraph that said most of the Russian politically conscious class rejects the present boundaries of the Russian Federation. They are inadequate to protect Russia’s security.\u2019<\/p>\n

Then, in 2008, Putin invaded Georgia and seized territory. And the Russians continue to \u2018gradually move their barbed wire further and further into Georgia,\u2019 says Wilson.<\/p>\n

Six years later, in 2014, Putin invaded Ukraine for the first time, and Russian forces shot down a Malaysian commercial passenger jet, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, in the process.<\/p>\n

\u2018Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who was then the secretary-general of NATO, goes to Moscow, and says to Mr Putin, \u201cI’ve come with a package of proposals to reform Russian NATO relations.\u201d And Putin says to him on camera, \u201cI don’t want to reform Russian NATO relations. I want NATO abolished.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

Also in that year, Wilson notes, a senior Russian official came to Chatham House in London. The official said, \u2018Putin is not so silly as to think that he can recreate the Soviet Union, but there is a core of the former Soviet Union that is properly ours\u2014Belarus, Ukraine and northern Kazakhstan. And it would be nice to have it back.\u2019<\/p>\n

In 2018, Putin unveiled what Wilson describes as a \u2018rather frightening array of new doomsday weapons, including a nuclear-armed torpedo that says, \u201cYou didn’t listen to us. Look at these weapons and listen to us now.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

All of this was accompanied by \u2018lurid and strident propaganda 24\/7 on Russian television, pushing anti-Western messages,\u2019 explains Wilson. An important part of this propaganda campaign was the idea that Ukraine is not a country or a people. \u2018Putin said that very early on to George Bush. Again, we didn’t listen,\u2019 he says.<\/p>\n

During the past decade, Putin also accelerated the remilitarisation of Russia.<\/p>\n

\u2018Under Putin, the military receives one in five roubles of revenue, but the security services and the national guard\u2014a 350,000-strong riot police\u2014also receive the same. So essentially three out of every five roubles of state revenue is going to control: an army to smite your foreign enemies and a domestic army to smite the traitors, the fifth column within.\u2019<\/p>\n

It\u2019s therefore likely that Russia believes it is now demonstrating strength on its own terms by being able to wage what Wilson refers to as the \u2018Russian way of war\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018There\u2019s an expression in Russian that translates as \u201cTo be tender-hearted does not become a sword\u201d,\u2019 says Wilson. What this means in practice is the exercise of extreme brutality towards civilians, combined with an indifference to Russia\u2019s own casualties.<\/p>\n

Putin is likely to be equally indifferent, at least in the medium term, to Russia\u2019s sanctions-induced economic suffering. Wilson argues that we shouldn\u2019t be defining the health of the Russian economy in GDP terms.<\/p>\n

\u2018Russia occupies about a fifth or a sixth of the world\u2019s land surface. According to BHP Billiton, Russia sits on between 5% and 25% of almost everything on the planet, with exceptions like uranium and rare earths. Lake Baikal contains one-sixth of the world\u2019s fresh water.<\/p>\n

\u2018Oil and gas will remain important sources of revenue for the next 30 years. And the decline in Russia\u2019s labour force is compensated for by Central Asian migration.\u2019<\/p>\n

On the economic front, while Russia has two big weaknesses\u2014corruption and the brain drain of the best and brightest\u2014Wilson says it is dangerously self-delusionary to argue that Russia has a weak economy.<\/p>\n

Putin will also be encouraged by cracks in European support for Ukraine, as well as by the distinct lack of enthusiasm for Kyiv\u2019s struggle among much of the developing world.<\/p>\n

This will be feeding into the perception, endlessly peddled by Russian propaganda, that democratic nations don\u2019t have the stomach for the Russian way of war and that Russia, as part of its exceptionalism, has an ability to suffer in a prolonged way that Western countries simply don\u2019t have, Wilson says.<\/p>\n

So right now, Putin may not be feeling dissatisfied with the way things are going, despite all the assertions that the invasion is a disaster for him.<\/p>\n

According to Wilson, Russia\u2019s Black Sea blockade and destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure means that what Putin has achieved is the probable end of Ukraine as a viable nation-state.<\/p>\n

\u2018Yes, the losses have been far higher than expected, in terms of both manpower and material. Yes, the attempt to take Kyiv was a notable failure. But if you look at how Putin defines winning, it would be, if Ukraine can\u2019t be reintegrated back into the Russian empire, then no one will have it.\u2019<\/p>\n