A power-junkie Putin sets the stage for a long and grueling war

By Guy Faulconbridge

MOSCOW, Feb 15 (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin describes the Ukraine war as a turning point in which Russia finally stood up to the West, but some members of the Russian elite fear he has engaged their country in a long and futile drain of lives and resources. .

When the Russian president ordered troops into Ukraine on February 24, he was hoping for a quick victory, earning a place in history alongside the czars and teaching America a lesson in Russia’s resurgence since the end of the war. collapse of the Soviet Union. .

But he was wrong. The war has left hundreds of thousands dead and injured, Russia and its citizens are vilified in the West as aggressors, and its military now faces a resilient Ukraine backed by a growing NATO-led military alliance. UNITED STATES.

A Russian source familiar with the country’s decision-making said Putin’s hopes of polishing his reputation had been dashed.

“In the future, it will be even more difficult and more costly for both Ukraine and Russia,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Economic losses on this scale are not worth a few conquered territories.”

The source said he believed many members of the elite shared his opinion, although saying so publicly would lead to swift retaliation.

Putin says Moscow is locked in an existential battle against an arrogant West that wants to divide up Russia and its vast resources, a vision that Ukraine and the West reject.

Despite all the geopolitical upheaval he has caused, Putin still has no serious rival in power, according to five senior Russian sources close to the decision-making. And with all public dissent suppressed, Russia’s septuagenarian president need not fear the upcoming presidential election in March 2024.

However, the strategic and economic consequences of war may be felt for some time.

“I don’t believe in a big offensive, nor in the possibility of a Russian victory against the entire civilized world,” said a second source close to the Kremlin, who also requested anonymity.

The source said Russia is at a disadvantage both in terms of military technology and motivation, but the war will continue “for a long time”.

HIS ALTERNATIVE

Even one of the few skeptics whose criticism has so far been tolerated, a former commander of pro-Russian troops in eastern Ukraine and a supporter of the war, sees no clear way out.

“We are in an absolutely paradoxical situation,” said Igor Girkin, convicted by an international court of helping to shoot down a Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine.

“We have a completely incapable leadership formed directly by a president who is immovable and for whom there is no alternative. But a change of president would lead to rapid disaster.”

For Girkin, that would mean military defeat, civil war, and the subjugation of Russia.

Their frustrations center on secrecy, poor communication and an ineffective command structure that has led to a series of humiliating military defeats at the hands of the much smaller neighbor Ukraine.

But beyond the battlefield, Russia must pay for a war of unexpected scale and duration while suffering the harshest Western sanctions.

Forced to take the unpopular decision to mobilize 300,000 economically active young people last fall, Putin thus pushed hundreds of thousands more to flee Russia.

Moscow has lost a significant share of the European gas market that the Soviet Union and Putin took decades to gain. Russian oil production increased in 2022, but Moscow announced a production cut for March, most likely in response to a Western price cap on its refined products.

Many Western companies and investors have fled, prompting Russia to woo China’s old rival as an investor and buyer of its oil.

Its $2.1 trillion economy – one-twelfth that of the United States – will grow 0.3% this year, well below the growth rates of China and India, according to the International Monetary Fund. .

The current account surplus has narrowed and the budget deficit has widened, despite large drawdowns on the reserve fund.

“This war is the most important activity that Putin has undertaken, and certainly for Russia, it is the most important bet since the fall of the Soviet Union,” said Samuel Charap, Russia specialist at the RAND Corporation which worked at the US State Department.

But if Russian business leaders – including many of Putin’s former KGB colleagues – object during events, they do so in private.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

Everything will depend on the battlefield, where the front line stretches for 850 kilometers. Neither side has air superiority. Both suffered massive casualties.

The West is supplying more advanced – and longer-range – weapons after supplying tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons, projectiles, missiles and intelligence. But your tolerance for this expense may not be infinite.

Putin could play the last resort in the long run, said CIA director William Burns, a former ambassador to Moscow who carried messages from President Joe Biden to Russia.

“The next six months, it seems to me, and that’s our assessment at the CIA, is going to be critical,” Burns said at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service on Feb. 2.

He claimed that the reality of the battlefield will pierce “Putin’s arrogance”, showing him that his army cannot advance, but only lose territories already conquered.

Some members of the Russian elite disagree, saying it will be the West, not Russia, that will lose.

“The president thinks he can win in Ukraine,” a Russian source said. “He, of course, cannot lose the war. The victory will be ours.

Neither the Kremlin nor the West has specified what victory or defeat in Ukraine will entail, although Moscow remains far from controlling even the four Ukrainian provinces it has unilaterally proclaimed to be part of Russia. . Ukraine claims that it will recover every square centimeter of its territory.

And that gives little reason to believe that the war will end soon.

“Putin will stay in power until the end, unless he dies or there is a coup, which doesn’t seem likely at the moment,” a senior Western diplomat said.

“Putin can’t win the war, but he knows he can’t lose.”

(Reporting Reuters; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Kevin Liffey; Editing in Spanish by José Muñoz in the Gdansk newsroom)