How will Putin respond under this much pressure?
Since the invasion of Ukraine began last week, the pressure on the Russian military, economy, and political system has been intense. The lead-up to hostilities featured high stakes diplomacy, a divided West, and a seemingly unstoppable Russian military machine. The onset of the fighting has seen a diametric shift in these realities. The fear now may be that too much has gone wrong for Moscow and they may feel cornered. Let’s look at the array of problems Vladimir Putin is now facing.
European Military Responses
German Chancellor Scholz announces new military spending
For years, the European Union was a paper tiger. The EU has long been a sclerotic bureaucracy that spent years writing papers on military and security reform with no real plans on how to implement any of it. While there was fighting in the Balkans in the 1990s and a small war in Georgia in 2008, the vast majority of Europeans understood war as an event that happened elsewhere. Their contributions to it were a handful of peacekeepers in Africa or Afghanistan and only on the condition that their forces not actually engage in combat or suffer any casualties. For sure, Europeans have died in conflicts in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa but these were seen as sideshows. The war in Ukraine, for many racist and stereotypical reasons, is seen as a watershed event. War was not supposed to happen in “civilized” Europe anymore. And that rude awakening has propelled European countries to a degree of military action unseen since the end of the Cold War. The European Union is financing weapons sales to Ukraine. It has agreed to send fighter aircraft, anti-tank weapons, and surface-to-air missiles. Besides supplies, many countries are making notable breaks with long-held tradition. Germany has announced an increase in it’s defense budget and a major rearmament campaign. Finland’s legislature, the eduskunta, will be debating NATO membership on March 1. Germany has been a largely pacifist nation since the end of World War II and Finland has been a neutral country for the same period. These moves, along with the increase in military supplies to an active war zone in Ukraine represent seismic moves for European security.
The War in Ukraine
Captured Russian Soldiers in Ukraine
The fighting in Ukraine has been characterized by Ukrainian heroism, defiance, and tenacity versus Russian ineptitude, cowardice, and amateurism. It is very early in the war and we shouldn’t believe everything either side says about anything. But there is enough evidence in neutral reporting and on social media to confirm that the Russian plan is not going well. Videos of destroyed Russian equipment, captured soldiers, and stoic Ukrainian defenders are making the Russian armed forces look extremely bad. Much of Putin’s leverage over Europe and NATO was the notion of Russia as a dangerous adversary that had to be feared if not respected. That respect is gone. The fear remains but if Russia keeps struggling like this, even fear may not last long either. The war is in its early stages and a lot can change. Russia has already been moving in a more methodical fashion towards Kyiv and Kharkov and more firepower is being brought to bear. But this is definitely not how the Russian military planners thought things would be going at this stage.
Russian Domestic Pressures
Protesters in Russia marching for an end to the war in Ukraine
The Russian economy is going down. The ruble has lost a third of it’s value. Russian banks are under sanction and trade will be declining. Putin’s assets could be threatened and the oligarch’s are on the chopping block financially. A ban on international travel has been announced and Russian aircraft can’t enter Europe. Meanwhile, thousands of Russians are protesting the war from Moscow to St. Petersburg to Vladivostok. Even authoritarian regimes need popular support and the risk of losing it can make them change course. In other instances, it makes them crack down on dissent which is what we’re seeing right now. There is suddenly a lot of pressure on Putin from the political, financial, and ordinary classes of Russians.
All of these issues should worry us. Are we pushing Russia too hard and too fast? What does a regime like Putin’s do when under threat? How quickly could a threat to Russia’s entire economy become an existential threat to the regime. We are not near the release of nuclear weapons but the Russian Strategic Forces are at a higher state of alert. This is a signal; it’s a signal that this is all escalating too quickly for the Kremlin and that the West needs to back off. Putin identified the existence of Ukraine and NATO military support for Kyiv an existential threat to the Russian state. The West must be wary about putting Mr. Putin in too much of a corner.