A year ago Vladimir Putin had hoped blitzkrieg-like strikes, emulating Germany’s seizure of Poland to open the second World War, would see Kyiv fall within days. He had counted on the collapse of what his intelligence told him was a weak, easily demoralised Ukrainian army and a people ready to be liberated from a “neo-Nazi”regime.
A year on, forecasts on all sides are, instead, of a prolonged war. Russia’s troops are bogged down in what is now a first World War repeat, trench warfare in the vast muddy plains of eastern Ukraine. His latest offensive advances inch by inch, sacrificing thousands of largely untrained recruits in human waves that are mown down. It is a quagmire of historic proportions.
Putin’s army, outclassed by a much smaller but more mobile and highly motivated Ukrainian force, has taken – Western intelligence sources say – up to 200,000 casualties, and lost some 4,500 armoured vehicles, 63 fixed-wing aircraft , 12 ships and 63 artillery systems. Russia has also used up most of its pre-war stock of 3,000-3,500 long-range missiles. It now controls only 17 per cent of Ukraine’s internationally recognised territory, and has been forced to abandon half the land it seized in the war’s early weeks.
Putin is having real difficulties in replenishing men – a draft call to add 300,000 troops was met by 500,000 young people fleeing the country – and materials. His economy has been hit hard by sanctions, vital oil exports crippled, and Russia has been cut off from global financial markets and western supply chains. Russia expects its income from energy, accounting for about 40 per cent of government revenue, to drop 23 per cent this year. Others expect the fall to be far larger. It will spend a third of national income this year on defence and security.
The “special military operation” has not only failed spectacularly to achieve Putin’s objectives but has succeeded in uniting Europe and the United States in a new common purpose. It has immeasurably strengthened Nato, whose raison d’etre had been increasingly questioned.
In his state of the nation speech this week Putin made clear he has no intention of backing down and is gambling on Russia’s will and depleted resources outlasting the resolve of the west. That is no given. His announcement of withdrawal from the last major anti-nuclear proliferation treaty (Start) marks a significant and dangerous escalation of hostilities against Nato. The absence of threats to use nuclear weapons inside Ukraine may well be a recognition of how counterproductive such a strike would be against territory Russia claims as its own.
One year on, Putin’s aspirations to the mantle of Peter the Great and of a restored Russian empire remain as delusional – and as dangerous – as ever.