Putin has already lost
Taking back Ukraine was supposed to be his crowning glory
Daryl McCann
Russia’s 24 February invasion of Ukraine, writes Philip Short in his expansive new biography, Putin: His Life and Times, was to be Vladimir’s ‘crowning achievement’. Now, seven months into that disastrous war, a Russian pro-war military blogger, Igor Girkin, has appraised his 430,000 viewers of the discomforting truth: ‘The war in Ukraine will continue until the complete defeat of Russia. We have already lost, the rest is just a matter of time.’
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Igor Girkin and the other pro-war ultra-nationalists in Moscow are, in a sense, right to be calling for a total war to be undertaken if ‘the complete defeat of Russia’ is to be averted.
Putin, however, is in a lose-lose situation If he mobilises Russia for total war his popularity is likely to dissipate overnight, his presidency suddenly untenable.
The Russian people have not signed on to reprise the nightmare of World War II. If, on the other hand, Putin persists with the current course of sub-par military action, his eponymous war will become unsustainable.
Either way, the complete defeat of Vladimir Putin is just a matter of time.