Friday, March 29

“Putin started losing the moment Russia entered Ukraine”


The invasion of Ukraine has opened an ocean of doubts about the warthe political complexity of Russia and the architect of this military operation, Vladimir Putin. The British Mark Galeotti, honorary professor at the School of Slavic and Eastern European Studies at University College London, has spent more than two decades surgically analyzing the leader of the Kremlin and to his nation.

After recently publishing the books ‘A brief history of Russia‘ Y ‘We have to talk about Putin‘ (Capitán Swing), the renowned author attends to EL PERIÓDICO in a telephone conversation.

What has changed in Putin in the last two years that made him decide to invade Ukraine?

The attack is a symptom of Putin’s changes, not only in his physical state but also in his character. Putin has always put himself at the center because he wants to be one of the great political figures in Russian history, he presents himself as someone in control of the situation and of himself, someone convinced that he knows more than others and does not accept traitors. However, during the Security Council before the war we saw him criticize his intelligence chiefs and bored when the prime minister talked to him about the economy. That’s the point where I thought things were going to get ugly. Putin remains the same, but in a sense he has become his own caricature, with his features now much more dramatic. It could be because of his age (in October he will turn 70) or because of the covid and the isolation to which he was subjected…

“Something has changed in Putin, he is less in control of himself.”

Much has been said about his health problems, whether he has Parkinson’s or even blood cancer…

Not even the experts are clear about what is happening to him, but something has changed in him, he is less in control of himself. The funny thing is that, before the invasion, Putin was winning: he had his troops on the border, Ukraine’s economy was in crisis, leaders were pressing Zelensky to make concessions to the Kremlin, and others were traveling to Moscow to convince Putin that he did not launch the invasion. Being in the center, that’s the position he wants to be in. If Putin were the great geopolitical chess player he is said to have maintained that situation, but he chose to act, and began to lose the moment the first Russian tank crossed the border. Whatever it is that has changed Putin, I think he helps to understand that he imposed on his generals without listening to them the ridiculous strategy of thinking that Ukraine would sink at the first blow and without a fight.

Russia has gone from wanting to impose a lightning invasion to focusing on control of Donbas. Along the way, the war has stalled and many top Russian military officials have been killed in combat. Has the Kremlin been overestimated?

Russia’s military problems have come to the fore, such as the poor state of its weapons, but it is also true that, after eight years of preparation, the Ukrainians have proven to be very strong in defending the country. They knew the day would come. Also, they made the strategic mistake of thinking that invading Ukraine would be a piece of cake, that the war would last a couple of days, like Czechoslovakia in 1968. Drop some paratroopers on kyiv and stop their government. The Russian army fights in a very structured and methodical way, but Putin prevailed. Many commanders were not even informed that they were going to war. They thought they could storm the big cities and that and the lack of coordination caused them devastating casualties. Now the generals are launching a more rational operation in Donbas to reverse the damage Putin has done to them, but they have already lost the first-strike advantage.

Is there unrest in the government and the army? Is Putin increasingly alone?

Putin is more alone than ever. In the face of Russia’s existential struggle, you can only be a patriot or a traitor. The government technocrats, who run the economy, know that the invasion of Ukraine is a disaster, but what can they do? When Central Bank President Elvira Nabiullina called Putin to tell him that the war is sinking the economy, she hung up on him. He doesn’t want to hear the bad news. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has been inconspicuous lately, which could be due to a falling out with Putin. What we do know is that there is a real current of anger among the military. And also among the nationalists, people who have no problem subjugating Ukraine, but that it has been done so badly. There is discomfort, but also a certain impotence. The security agencies remain loyal to Putin.

Is a coup against Putin possible similar to the one that overthrew Nikita Khrushchev after the missile crisis?

The regime is effectively designed against any coup attempts because there are many intelligence agencies that watch over each other. But nothing is impossible. Putin may start having problems in September. So many households will have more problems with their savings, they will notice inflation and unemployment could skyrocket. In addition, there are local elections, and even the most manipulated ones generate debate and disagreement.

The people around Putin are not Putinists. The Russian system is full of pragmatic and ruthless opportunists who constantly think of risks and benefits. Now, the risk of doing something against Putin is far greater than keeping his head down, but if protests start and his health takes a turn for the worse, that may be the time when opportunists have to make tough decisions. As we saw with the USSR and the Soviet orbit, there can be very strong regimes that once people start to defect they can collapse very quickly. It’s not impossible, but I don’t expect it soon.

The war has been redirected to eastern Ukraine. Can Putin think of taking Transnistria and Moldova?

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I don’t think that is his intention. And even if it were, it couldn’t do it, it’s an area surrounded by enemy airspace. To get there by land, you would first have to go through Odessa. They have tried to capture this port city and have failed. She is now much more well prepared than ever before. The question is whether they will achieve their goal, which is to capture Donbas and build a bridge to Crimea. The offensive is moving very slowly and I think the Russians will end up losing control. And unless Putin officially declares war and mobilizes reserves, they have no resources or troops this year for another offensive.

“Unless Putin officially declares war and mobilizes reserves, this year they have no resources or troops for another offensive.”

Is the use of nuclear weapons a real threat?

I think it’s just a threat. She has nothing else to intimidate us. However, the Putin of today is more unpredictable and, although remote, it could be possible that he would resort to tactical nuclear weapons. It would not be easy and it would be a call to the West for regime change. China would be very unhappy with that path and, if Putin’s entourage sees that it is too dangerous, that could lead us to a coup scenario. Putin believes in a lot of crap but he is not a lunatic, I think he is still a rational actor.

With which Russian leader can Putin be compared?

Three months ago Tsar Nicholas I, an authoritarian autocrat who tried to fight inevitable change, would have said. Since the invasion of the Ukraine he began to think that he could be Nicholas II, the last of the tsars. He went into World War I thinking it would be easy and he would restore his image, but it ended up being a carnage that would destroy him. We may not see another Bolshevik revolution, but we do see the destruction of their system.

Putin claims to fight NATO but has achieved possible entry of Sweden and Finland. What impact can this have?

This is one of the greatest ironies of war. Putin was worried that NATO would deploy missile bases on Ukrainian soil and at the moment it does not seem that this can happen in Sweden or Finland. Ukraine is a different case because, from the Kremlin’s perspective, it is Russian territory. Putin considers them traitors because they have opposed being owned by the Russian motherland. Instead, he has said that he has no problem with Sweden and Finland joining NATO because he can’t do anything about it. The army will see this move as a failure, but I don’t think it will blossom into anything dramatic.

“We can win the war against Putin, but lose the peace by feeding the pain and anger of ordinary Russians.”

Was enlargement to the east a strategic mistake by NATO?

I don’t think so, although the way the West handled it was. The problem was saying that NATO would not grow and doing it; that it was a purely defensive alliance and then troops were deployed to places like Afghanistan. Those decisions maybe made sense then, but we didn’t think about how Russia would see them. Putin believes all kinds of ridiculous conspiracies about NATO, but we focus so much on him that we don’t think about how to address ordinary Russians. That is still happening now with the sanctions, and we end up treating all Russians as if they were allies of Putin. That is dangerous because we are alienating citizens who might have sympathy for the West. When they can’t get access to medicine, they don’t blame Putin, they blame our sanctions. That can lead us to win the war against Putin, but lose the peace by feeding his pain and anger.

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Russian television is increasingly radicalizing its tone. Is it a reflection of what the people think or what the Kremlin wants to impose?

The second. Sometimes the more extreme and ridiculous the propaganda is when they know it really isn’t working. A majority of Russians support the war, but the one they see on TV, a limited military operation with very few casualties to prevent a neo-Nazi regime from gaining access to nuclear weapons to carry out genocide. People know that the government is lying to them, but they accept the official line because perhaps it doesn’t affect them too much. That perception will change when there is a reality check, whether it is seeing that more and more dead arrive from the front or that they can hear those who return. Little by little, the reality of the war will reach home to ordinary Russians. I think that for the same reason Putin does not want to order a massive mobilization towards Ukraine, where 15,000 soldiers have already died, more than there were in the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

Is the European far right Putin’s Trojan horse?

Russia has encouraged disruptive and radical movements, because their goal is to divide us between countries and within them so that we are so distracted by it that we are not able to mobilize. Thus, it has supported many far-right groups with money and propaganda, but also the radical left and regional secessionist movements. The war has made associating with Moscow much more toxic, as seen with Marine Le Pen. I don’t know how he will keep this.

Related news

Putin has railed against Lenin and the USSR, but he is still using soviet symbols in the conquered areas of Ukraine. For what is this?

Putin is a bad historian, he thinks that history is a buffet where he can choose what he wants. He uses the red Soviet flag that was raised over Nazi Berlin as a symbol of victory, thinking that it can be detached from other elements of the Bolshevik era. He wants to promote a heroic narrative of Russia and chooses what works best for him, be it the USSR or the tsarist empire.


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