One year ago today, Russian President Vladimir Putin was reeling. The Russian army was still recuperating months after withdrawing from the Ukrainian city of Kherson. Russian troops were in the middle of a winter offensive with very little to show for it. The feud between the Russian military’s high command and Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was reaching a boiling point and, come spring, would erupt into an embarrassing 24-hour mutiny on Russian soil.
As the war in Ukraine enters its third year, Putin’s position is more stable. The Ukrainian counteroffensive was a flop, exacerbating the Ukrainian army’s manpower and materiel shortages. Russian forces captured the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka after leveling it to the ground. Prigozhin has been dead for six months, while another Putin nemesis, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, died behind the walls of a Russian prison. With his imminent presidential election victory just around the corner, you wouldn’t blame Putin for feeling confident.
It’s difficult to put into words just how damaging the war has been to the Russian army.
Look beneath the surface, however, and the situation Putin’s Russia finds itself in is more ambiguous, if not grim. Notwithstanding the latest military gains on the ground, Russia is in a far weaker geopolitical position today than it has been in years. The ongoing war in Ukraine is degrading, not strengthening, Russia’s power.
First, it’s difficult to put into words just how damaging the war has been to the Russian army, an institution that U.S. defense analysts once thought could capture the Baltic capitals of Tallinn and Riga in as little as 60 hours. Russia’s military performance in Ukraine to date has shredded those previous assumptions. The Russian way of war is high-intensity, but also littered with command-and-control problems, poor tactics and questionable decisions about resource-allocation. The territorial gains Russia has accomplished have come at…
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