Putin's Failure

Putin rolled the dice of war and didn’t beat Ukraine. This, in strategic terms, probably means he lost the campaign. In retrospect, the Kremlin’s plan consisted of an airborne/airmobile/Spetsnaz descent on Kyiv, the mission of which was to establish an airhead in the capital and capture the Ukrainian government until relieved by mechanized forces racing in from the north. An airmobile assault was attempted at Gostomel to Kyiv’s immediate north.

Approximate latest situation map
Russia attacks in Ukraine
Control zones – Red: Russia Yellow: Ukraine pic.twitter.com/vJNJ1a7OGy

— Levent Kemal (@leventkemaI) February 25, 2022

But things went badly wrong. The Russian battalion-sized airmobile force met stiff air defense and was immediately counterattacked by the Ukrainian mobile reserve. Unable to land follow-on forces, the paratroopers could not withstand heavy weapons and were scattered or wiped out. Equally serious for the Russians was the failure of their northern pincer to advance on schedule.

Desperate to “bag” the Ukrainian government, the Russians attempted a large-scale airborne assault for Vasylkiv Airfield to the south of Kyiv to establish a blocking position to catch withdrawing units. But this failed, with two C-17 counterpart IL-76s loaded with paratroops destroyed, and with them, two infantry companies of the Kremlin’s finest. Crucially the Russian mechanized elements trickling into Kyiv proved too weak to break through the city defense.

When it was clear Zelensky, and hence the Ukrainian government, could not be bagged and was quite capable of retreating in good order to fallback positions in the West, it was obvious that Putin could not conclude the campaign with the political time and the military forces at hand. At this, the diplomatic floodgates opened, with even China urging a diplomatic solution, and much of the world, scared to death of a third world war, timidly then more forcefully chiming in.

Ukraine has not won, not in the military sense. It has lost territory, suffered significant losses to soldiers and civilians, and endured massive property damage. But crucially, it has not lost — and that may be enough. Attention is now turning to the possible danger that may attend Putin’s fall. While he appears to remain firmly in power, the ex-chekist (member of the original Soviet secret police) cannot but be weakened by the massive failure of his gamble.

There is nothing else the Ukrainian winter war of 2022 resembles so much as a gigantic throw of the dice, so preposterous given the available forces that many, myself included, did not believe any rational man could undertake it. But perhaps Putin is not the ten-foot colossus the media makes him out to be as much as an aging “man of force” presiding over an economically and demographically dwindling, ex-Soviet haunted empire. In that he resembles another dictator, who the media likes to compare everyone to, that in dire straits launched a similar failed gamble in the Ardennes in 1944.

The crisis in Ukraine, while not over, is likely to evolve into a crisis in Russia. We shall soon see who is more to be feared: a Putin in Kyiv or a Putin raging in the bunker.

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