When it happened seven months ago, I could not believe Putin's lack of sense and foresight in deciding to invade and attempt to take over the entirety of Ukraine. His misjudgment of the attitude of the Ukrainian people, their willingness and ability to fight, as well as his misjudgment of the capability of the Russian Army and misreading of history were appalling.
This invasion has caused deaths and injuries numbering in the hundreds of thousands. It has resulted in the displacement of close to fifteen million Ukrainians from their homes. It has resulted in a shattering of the economy of Ukraine and the burden of dramatically higher energy prices for the whole world.
It has isolated Russia and turned it into a pariah. It has cut off communications between educational and cultural institutions. Russia has become isolated economically, politically, culturally and morally.
Putin’s attack, premised as it was on the threat of the expansion of NATO, has accomplished exactly the opposite: the accession of two new close-to-Russia countries to NATO, and a strengthening of the ties and commitments within it.
During the last three weeks we have witnessed six significant events deepening the reality of the folly of Putin’s decision:
1. The Ukrainians counter-offensive in northeast Ukraine has re-taken more territory from the Russians than it took during the war to date.
2. The summit held in last week in Uzbekistan, which included President Xi of China, and Prime Minister Modi of India, had to be a real downer for Putin.
Xi did nothing to express his commitment to what Putin is doing in Ukraine. In fact, he didn’t even mention Ukraine. His silence spoke volumes.
Modi, on his part, lectured Putin on the need to stop the war and achieve peace.
Russia is isolated.
3. The discovery of mass graves in the liberated city of Izyum in northwestern Ukraine is putting a spotlight on the horrors Russian soldiers had inflicted on Ukrainian citizens. Some of the bodies had ropes around their necks; others showed signs of torture.
4. Many of those living in Donetsk and Luhansk who were initially happy that Russia was coming in, changed their mind as they saw the way Russian soldiers were treating the Ukrainian citizens. Their conduct is quite understandably turning away many of those who due to their family lineage and proximity to Russia had been sympathetic to Russia.
5. The shades appear to be lifting in the state press in Russia on what is really going on. There is pushback on Putin, not enough to overthrow him, but enough to surely unsettle him and his supporters from people who are criticizing the war effort and implicitly if not explicitly the folly of what is happening.
6. Putin's calling up 300,000 so-called reservists (many have had no training) has unmasked the fiction that this not a real war and is producing significant push-back. Over 200,000 men have reportedly fled Russia in little more than one week.
The stakes and risks involved in this war are being raised as I write this by a sham-referendum conducted under gun point in eastern and south eastern Ukraine and the likelihood Russia will move to annex these regions making them part of Russia. This increases the challenge of achieving a negotiated settlement which Ukraine will sign on to. In truth, however, that is the only conceivable outcome if we are avoid a multi-year, costly battle of attrition.
My view of this war from the start has been that Putin's decision to invade Ukraine will go down in history as one of the cruelest and misbegotten self-immolating undertakings ever.
Its deadly impact on the people ofUkraine and others in the world suffering from its consequences is abundantly clear. The harm to Russia in lives lost and the severance of connection with the West—economic, cultural and technology—is horrendous. It will take years, perhaps decades to recover. The sooner that recovery begins, the better. I remain optimistic that in time it will happen. A long term relationship for Russia with the West seems much more plausible than with China and India or Russia's going it alone, isolated as it is becoming.
In the current moment, we must continue to support Ukraine in its drive to regain territory even if incrementally. We should not allow Putin's thinly veiled threat to use tactical nuclear weapons to deter us from hanging tough, without provoking a direct confrontation with Russia. The longer this continues the weaker I believe Putin's position will become. He is yielding both the moral and military high ground. Patience I believe will be rewarding.
Longer term, I continue to see no alternative but new leadership in Russia. I write this conscious of the challenge of achieving it and the uncertainty of what that new leadership will bring.
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