Ukraine War
Russia v Ukraine: A Race to the Bottom?
Putin will destroy his own country to crush Ukraine, but it’s going to be a tough road to follow as Ukraine strikes deep into Russian heartland
Putin is ready to “mobilize the population and economy of Russia for years” in order to defeat Ukraine.
“According to former Russian officials and people close to the Kremlin, Putin is determined to press Ukraine to the nail and is ready to mobilize the population and economy of Russia for years to do this,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
I’m no economist or geopolitician, but if this is correct then surely it is a sign of madness?
It seems to me to be totally irrational, what equation is he working with?
But he’s too far down the road now to change course, unless he goes nuclear — and he has recently walked back some of his more aggressive statements on that subject.
But what is also interesting is the apparent sourcing of this story: “According to former Russian officials and people close to the Kremlin”.
Former officials? Does that mean disaffected individuals? People close to the Kremlin? Is this more maskirovka (military deception)?
Ukraine ramps up its asymmetry
I’m writing this on a day when a Ukraine drone (or drones) has struck a key Russian airbase deep inside Russia at Saratov, 450 miles southeast of Moscow (The Guardian), killing 3 people. Russia has admitted the attack.
It seems that despite speculation about renewed Russian offensives, Ukraine is playing the asymmetric warfare cards very cleverly, hitting hard and deep into Russia.
“On December 26, at around 01:35 Moscow time, a Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle was shot down at low altitude while approaching the Engels military airfield in the Saratov region,” the TASS news agency reported, quoting the defense ministry. “As a result of the fall of the wreckage of the drone, three Russian technical servicemen who were at the airfield were fatally injured.” The defense ministry said no planes were damaged. — Le Monde
Engels airbase in Saratov is the location from which Russian bombers have been taking off to launch long-range cruise missiles at targets within Ukraine. The 121st Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment with the Tu-160M and 184th Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment with the Tupolev Tu-95MS of the 22nd Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Division are based there.
But 450 miles inside Russia? That’s a huge inroad into Russian airspace. How did they get that far through the vaunted Russian air defences? (irony). The report implies that the drone must have been very close to its target if the wreckage fell on the airbase so it didn’t, technically, get through. However, one of the two missiles it fired is reported to have hit the ‘base control centre’.
It has been reported that Russia has evacuated four of the TU-95s from Engels:
This attack on Engels must be causing even more apoplexy within the Kremlin, following on from Ukraine’s headline grabbing sinking of the Moskva, flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, the combined ops air/seaborne drone attacks on the Sevastopol naval base and trashing of the Kerch Bridge.
Where’s the balance?
The Russian people are not stupid and they are starting to see that things are not going well:
- the attack on the Engels base has been acknowledged by Moscow. Moscow is starting to be more open about bad news. Is that a good sign?
- Ukraine is also being assisted by sabotage missions all over the Russian Federation. Chris Snow has detailed and tracked the trail of fires from Vladivostok to St Petersburg.
Putin has said that he will spend whatever it takes to ‘nail Ukraine’. But there is a limit, there has to be. It’s an economic battle, West versus Russia.
And remember, of every 1 million rubles Putin spends on his ‘mighty’ military machine, maybe 350,000 of those go into someone’s Swiss bank account (if they are not already on the sanctions list).
Let’s not lose the perspective: The Russian economy is about the same size as that of Italy. So it’s not only an asymmetric war in weaponry, it’s also asymmetric economically.
It makes you think doesn’t it?
He is surely betting that ‘the West’ will tire of the cost, the cold winters and prolonged timescale of his 3 day special military operation (now close to 300 days); that pressure will be put on Ukraine to compromise.
And all this before his cronies tire of his abysmal failure and eat him for breakfast.
Or he has a revolution on his hands.
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…Asymmetric war and common sense
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