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Putting Putin on the Horns of a Dilemma [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-11-17
The war in Ukraine goes on as the butchers bill creeps ever higher. Russia, rather than cutting its losses from its misadventure, continues to pour men into Ukraine to eke out a victory on a pile of corpses. Yet there are a few things that we can lose sight of as the war goes on.
First of all, Russia has already lost the war. In terms of its war aims, that being the conquest of the entire country, Russia is in no feasible position at this point to being able to do that even with the recent surge of men into the theater. Instead it is Ukraine that is deciding the war aims of the conflict as it has now gone from preserving the Ukrainian state to liberating all of the occupied territory including Crimea. Due to Putin’s maximalist position and Russia’s inability to achieve it, Ukraine is now the one determining the scope of the conflict.
And that scope has become even wider as a new dimension has entered the conflict. Now, in addition to the liberation of its territory, Ukraine will also have to decide what to do about the mass abduction of Ukrainian children from the occupied territories. While the Western World is agreeable to Ukraine liberating all of its territory, it may be uncertain about the status of the abducted children. Does the conflict continue after the liberation of Crimea and Donbass to rescue the kidnapped children? Would Ukraine have to invade Russia itself to force the return of its children?
This is not a comforting thought when it comes to ending the war. But here’s the main point, the war should be viewed as a war against Putin rather than all of Russia. Putin is the architect of this calamity and he is the one that this war will need to defeat. Therefore I believe what Ukraine needs to do is force Putin into a position where he will need to return all occupied territory and release the abducted children in order to save his own skin.
Ukraine will need to create the conditions to threaten Putin with the collapse of his criminal regime. This can be done with a multi-faceted approach in military, economic and political domains.
Militarily it will required the degradation and destruction of Russia’s military to the point where it can no longer protect the regime, which can include destroying morale and threatening a military revolt. Economically the war must be brought into Russia’s households by destroying Russia’s energy export infrastructure and raising the costs of the war to unsustainable levels, something Ukraine is beginning to achieve. Lastly, Politically Putin will have to be faced with the choice of ending the war or ending his regime. This can be done with the liberation of Crimea (Putin’s crown jewel) or the capturing of a key Russian city such as Belgorod to use as leverage against Putin. Putin’s nationalist members will scream bloody murder while also making the Putin regime look weak and unable to combat a surprisingly resurgent Ukraine that is now taking the offensive.
Ukraine doesn’t need to march to the gates of Moscow to win the war. Rather it has to checkmate Putin into a position that he will give up his ill gotten gains and release the kidnapped Ukrainian children to preserve his regime of plunder and theft.
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