A Year of War in Ukraine: Now What, Vladimir Putin? More than 8 million refugees: Ukrainians found shelter here

People tend to view the world through rose colored glasses. You focus on the supposedly positive and suppress less fun but more realistic things. That’s how it was a year ago. Many clung to the hope that Vladimir Putin was merely trying to intimidate Ukraine and the West with his troop deployment.

One could not or would not imagine an invasion and with it the return of an aggressive war to Europe, a supposedly expelled ghost of the 20th century. This is what happened to the Federal Council and the author of these rules. They clung to the hope that, as in other cases, the peace efforts would be successful.

I and many others did not expect Vladimir Putin to be on a mission. A mission of evil that led straight to the abyss of hell.

One could have guessed. The war actually started in 2014, with the annexation of Crimea and Putin’s attempt to separate the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Donbass from Ukraine with the help of “separatists”. “Collateral damage” was the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. 298 people lost their lives.

From nothing to the top

A team of detectives recently announced that Putin himself would have ordered the weapons system used to be delivered to the separatists. Who else, you might ask. Since Vladimir Putin rose from nothing to the top of the Russian state almost a quarter of a century ago, he has concentrated all power in his own hands.

Over time, an original approach to the West, which we may have viewed through rose-colored glasses, developed a deep aversion. In reality, however, his resentments are based on the collapse of the Soviet Union, which he witnessed as a KGB officer. He described it as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.

You have to take him at his word

Putin could not come to terms with the independence of Ukraine, which nationalists call Little Russia. The then Russian government had explicitly recognized them in the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. In return, the fledgling state pledged to destroy its nuclear arsenal, which at the time was the third largest in the world.

However, in 2008, Putin told then US President George W. Bush that Ukraine was not a “real” country. It was a mistake in the West not to take such slogans seriously. Today it is clear that Putin must be taken at his word. He means what he says.

“Make Russia Great Again”

What had also been forgotten was that war had been an integral part of Putin’s repertoire ever since Boris Yeltsin appointed him his successor. It started in 1999 with the second Chechen war, which was extremely brutal. He served the previously unknown St. Petersburg apparatchik to “legitimize” his rule.

This was followed by the 2008 war in Georgia, the annexation of Crimea and the intervention in Syria to save Bashar Assad’s regime from collapse. The invasion of Ukraine is a logical continuation of this spiral of violence. Some in the West believe the hasty withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan in August 2021 encouraged him to do so.

What is overlooked is that Vladimir Putin had published an “essay” a few weeks earlier that he had written himself, which reads like a manifesto of sorts to “bring Ukraine home” to the Russian Empire. “Make Russia great again” has become an obsession for him, which he wanted to put into practice on February 24, 2022 with the marching orders.

And now?

First, some self-criticism is in order. I thought the war would isolate Putin. Hadn’t China recently made a clear commitment to Ukraine’s territorial integrity? When it started, Beijing immediately sided with Moscow. The Global South also shows a strange understanding of Putin’s war of colonial conquest in the neighboring country.

Like many others, I overestimated the impact of the sanctions. They have not done as much damage to the Russian economy as hoped. The Europeans and especially Germany also contributed to this. They bought Russian gas while they could. The sheer size of the country and its wealth of raw materials kept Russia from collapsing.

Putin’s fantasies

But otherwise? Russia’s “military special operation” is not going according to plan at all. The supposed strategic genius Putin has turned out to be a dilettante. His fantasy of overthrowing the “neo-Nazi” regime in Kiev in a matter of days was shattered by his own hubris and the defiance of the Ukrainians.

In the West, too, many believed they had no chance against the overwhelming Russian army. But this is still based on the hierarchical chain of command from the Soviet era. And their supposed modernization was yet another utopia. Since the communication system was down, the officers used their mobile phones.

A caricature of himself

So the Russian advance on Kiev became a joke. While ex-comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyy outdid himself in his hour of need. When war broke out, the Americans wanted to help him escape, but the Ukrainian president responded with a memorable phrase: “I need ammunition, not a ride!”

Two days after the invasion began, he released the first of many videos inciting Ukrainian resistance. While Vladimir Putin hid in the Kremlin, behind absurd tables, surrounded by courtiers. “Like many autocrats he became a caricature of himself,” British historian Mark Galeotti wrote in the Sunday Times.

rampant corruption

He has written several books on Russia and Putin and knows the mechanisms in the Kremlin. During his far too long tenure, Vladimir Putin has set up a mafia-like system whose profiteers become rampantly wealthy. Putin himself is considered the greatest thief. He has placed favorites at the top of companies and is said to have siphoned off billions.

The rampant corruption has not spared the military either, fortunately from Ukraine’s point of view. Huge sums of money earmarked for rearmament flowed down dark channels. Russia has only a few examples of its most modern weapon systems, the functionality of which is questioned, for example, with the T-14 Armata tank.

Not bad news

An essential part of Putin’s mafia state is total submission. The president has surrounded himself with yes men. In an interview, Mark Galeotti recalled a conversation with a former foreign intelligence officer, who said in 2015: “We have learned that you do not bring unpleasant news to the Tsar.”

The Russian agents stationed in Kiev knew that the invasion would not be easy and that the Ukrainian army was much better positioned than it was in 2014 thanks to Western training and weapons. But no one wanted to pass on their warnings to the “tsar”. He preferred to hear the story of a quick victory.

A strange role model

Now the war lasts a year. And there is no end in sight. Some – not me – had hoped that Putin would at least send a signal of reconciliation in his speech on Tuesday. Not really! She was shadow boxing for almost two hours. Putin again promised victory, but he could not say how that would happen.

In short: it was the talk of a loser.

(Too) many in the West still believe that the US and NATO’s eastward expansion are responsible for the war. You have not listened to how Vladimir Putin has repeatedly compared himself to Tsar Peter the Great, whose 350th birthday was celebrated last year. And with his conquests. The Ukraine campaign should probably follow.

lie and be lied to

Peter the Great was a conqueror, but he was also a visionary who wanted to rejuvenate Russia using Western influences and technologies. He had his new capital, St. Petersburg, built by Western architects after Western models. Putin, on the other hand, is a reactionary who looks to the past.

“The result is a rotten state,” wrote Mark Galeotti in the Sunday Times. He quoted a political commentator from Russia who had complained in a private conversation: “The tragedy is that nowadays it is impossible to tell when Putin is lying and when he is being lied to.” Tragic for Ukraine, but also for Russia.

What’s next?

Experience calls for skepticism. Russia still has enormous human and material resources. Putin can continue the war for a long time while the Ukrainians run out of ammunition and urgently need new weapons. At the same time, however, the new Russian offensive in the Donbass is making little progress.

Instead, there is an increasing power struggle within the Moscow elite. Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, Putin’s man for the ultra-crude, is almost constantly agitating against the army leadership. Even the ruler loses his aura of infallibility. Hardliners and warmongers are increasingly attacking Putin on social media.

Perhaps Vladimir Putin is less firmly seated on his tsarist throne than you might think from the outside. However, a coup by the agitators would not be good news for Ukraine and the West. But who knows in this mafia state how it will happen? In any case, Putin will only seriously negotiate when his options are exhausted.

Vladimir Putin is obsessed with history. He is known for asking Russian historians how he will be judged in a hundred years, says Mark Galeotti. For the Briton, one thing is certain: “Because of his invasion of Ukraine, he will be classified as a failure, an example of how delusional thinking can erase all original successes.”