Vladimir Putin always liked to tell the story of the rat. It happened during his childhood in the stairwell of a communal apartment in Leningrad. He once hunted a rat. But when he cornered her, she suddenly lunged at him and chased him for several floors. Then he learned not to push anyone into a corner.
With his campaign of destruction against Ukraine, he is now in a corner, isolated from Europe. In the first year of the war, Ukraine proved to be a superior opponent, exposing the weaknesses of the Russian army.
How Putin underestimated the West
Putin also criminally underestimated Europe and the West, mocking them as effeminate and decadent. They would “no longer be able to live without foie gras, oysters and gender freedom”. And further: “You clearly consider yourself to be of a higher caste and higher race.”
He said that in March 2022, when he still assumed a blitzkrieg. He found the elderly US President Biden and German Chancellor Scholz just as funny as Ukrainian President Zelensky.
But the hated West took a surprisingly united and energetic stance against Putin’s regime and has so far successfully fended off its energy war.
In the eyes of his subjects, Putin can only win
Domestically, Putin still seems unchallenged in his power. Thanks to the military mobilization, the war has finally arrived in Russia since last autumn. The regime now spends a third of the state budget on the military and internal security.
This reduces investments in civilian areas such as schools or hospitals by at least 20 percent. In doing so, Putin jeopardizes his own model of success, which has not brought political freedom to his own people, but has at least brought modest prosperity.
In the eyes of his surprisingly obedient subjects, Putin can only win. So far he has been able to pass on the misadventures of his troops to others, but that will become increasingly difficult in the second year of the war, as he is the one who appoints all commanders-in-chief. Like the rat in his childhood anecdote, he has been pushed into a corner in domestic politics and the question arises how far he will go in the second year of the war.
Putin has been seeking revenge for the past three decades
The most plausible scenarios are suggested by experts who have met Putin and lived in Russia, speak the language, and yet operate completely independently of the bloated propaganda apparatus. An analyst who meets all these conditions and who has been reporting from Moscow for Die Zeit for more than 25 years does Michael Thuman.
He has just published a very informative, smart book about Putin, which other people who know the Russian dictator are taking a good note of (see resources). Thumann differs pleasantly from the numerous German Putin lobbyists and understanders. Since the 1990s, he has interviewed Putin several times.
He believably describes how the head of the Kremlin created the “most menacing regime in the world”. Thumann’s book is called “Revenge”. Putin sees the collapse of the Soviet Union not as a blessing, but as a catastrophe. He “plans revenge for the past three decades”. In short, the war against Ukraine is a belated reaction to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Russia is pulling back the Iron Curtain
Putin wants to restore Russia to its former glory and instill fear in those who have weakened, humiliated and betrayed his country. He thinks in Russian superpower dimensions, relies on authoritarian nationalism. Russia should become a superpower again like the Soviet Union once was, simply without a planned economy, without the pure doctrine of communist world happiness.
Like the Russian writer Viktor Erofeev, one could speak of negative perestroika. Where Gorbachev once strove for an opening and modernization of social and political life in the Soviet Union, Putin wants to achieve the opposite: Russia is again drawing the Iron Curtain to the West and wants to command respect through deterrence.
Since he is exiled in the West, Putin’s only economic dependence is on China. However, as the main buyer of Russian gas, Beijing will increasingly be able to dictate prices to Moscow, Thumann suspects.
Putin will become more radical in the second year of the war
Like other experts, he assumes that Putin will further radicalize in the second year of the war. In order not to come across as a loser, he must at least take Donbass. Thanks to military mobilization, he now follows the old Russian strategy of defeating the enemy with enormous amounts of manpower and material.
But analysts doubt he can provide the often poorly trained troops with sufficient arms and ammunition. He will therefore have to settle for sporadic offensives.
He is also likely to intensify his relentless bombing of civilian facilities and residential areas to make life as unbearable as possible for the Ukrainian people. Added to this is the hybrid war against the West, which seeks to damage Russia digitally or energetically. Like a religious fanatic, Putin now speaks of a “holy war” he is waging against NATO, the United States, Europe and the EU.
The increasingly blatant Russian misjudgments and emotional overreactions are dangerous. If the trench warfare in eastern Ukraine looks like a stalemate, Putin would see it as a defeat and seek further escalation. Will he then cross the red line and use nuclear weapons?
Even in the first year of the war, Putin and his propagandists were not stingy with Armageddon threats. In Russian talk shows it is almost de rigueur to call for the nuclear pulverization of London, Washington or Berlin. On the other hand, Putin has so far been reluctant to further increase the combat readiness of Russia’s nuclear forces, having taken it to level two of four levels last spring.
What speaks against the nuclear escalation?
Thumann sums up the arguments for and against a nuclear conflict. There is little point in using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. “They are suitable for attacks on large targets, on an entire army group or a larger city. However, the Ukrainian armed forces are organized in a decentralized manner.” Wiping out an entire city can also spill over to the Russian population.
Putin is not a suicide candidate, more of a survivor
Moreover, Putin would have to reckon with a counter-attack on his country. Putin’s biographer Fiona Hill writes that he is not a suicide candidate per se, but rather a “survivalist”, a tenacious survivor who wants to take pride of place in Russian history.
Unfortunately, something speaks for Thumann in favor of a nuclear strike. Those who constantly threaten the nuclear option are putting themselves under pressure. If Putin feels too cornered, as the rat did when he was a kid, he might as well try nuclear liberation. The Kremlin is certainly weighing which would be worse: the disadvantages of using nuclear weapons or the disadvantages of defeat in war. The latter would certainly have consequences for Putin and his regime.
Then an uprising against the failed warlord would be possible, which Michael Thumann otherwise considers “not a likely scenario”. Putin has secured his power too well and destroyed any dangerous opposition too effectively. Resistance is not to be expected in our own country. So what he fears most is himself, that he will make one wrong decision too many. With fatal consequences for him too.
Sources
Recommended book: Michael Thumann: «Revanche. How Putin created the world’s most menacing regime.” Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2023, 288 pages.
(aargauerzeitung.ch)
Soource :Watson
I am Amelia James, a passionate journalist with a deep-rooted interest in current affairs. I have more than five years of experience in the media industry, working both as an author and editor for 24 Instant News. My main focus lies in international news, particularly regional conflicts and political issues around the world.
