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Let me tell you about my drones (ADEM ALTAN/AFP via Getty Images)
The Bayraktar Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) TB2 looks like the malformed lovechild of a small plane and a large, angry wasp. But if the armed drone looks weird, there’s nothing strange about its performance. Over the past few weeks, the Ukrainians have been using their fleet of just 12 to churn up Russian hardware. By all accounts — most of which are set to video and posted on social media — they’ve taken out a Russian command post, a bunch of military vehicles (including a tank); various types of truck; a load of surface-to-air missile systems and a couple of Russian fuel trains.
Ukrainians write songs about their beloved Turkish drones. Ankara is feted in Kyiv. Now, not content with helping to kill Russians, Turkey’s President Recep Erdoğan is now trying to negotiate with them. Erdoğan spoke to Putin over the phone on Sunday and stressed the palpable need for a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds, saying Turkey was happy to help. He also — and this is important — made clear that Turkey will not jeopardise its relations with Russia or Ukraine. His ability to speak to both sides was, he said, an asset. They both agreed to hold more talks in Istanbul.
Turkey has offered to mediate between the two sides ever since the Russian army barrelled into Ukraine, following Putin’s hour-long televised meeting in which it became quite clear he was in the grip of despotism’s true curse: an utter detachment from the reality that would, under normal circumstances, restrain him. Thousands have now died in a war that is now over a month old and that Putin told everyone would last three days. Then again, he also told everyone — including Ukraine’s Jewish President — that he was going to “denazify Ukraine”, which his troops chose to do last week by shooting up the Holocaust Memorial in Drobitsky Yar on the outskirts of Kharkiv.
So Putin now finds himself in a tricky spot. His soldiers are getting shredded by Ukrainians buoyed by Western weaponry and the motivation that comes with defending their homeland . My concern has always been that Moscow has never cared about the lives of its soldiers — it’s not like their families can complain or the government is accountable to its citizens. Besides, there are plenty more where they came from and, despite some reports, plenty more Russian hardware to wheel into play.
But for now, Russia flounders. There is much talk of “off-ramps”, a phrase used in geopolitical circles to mean giving someone a way out of a disastrous situation (usually of their own making). The problem is: how do you do it? Putin cannot talk to the United States or to Britain or even the EU — all of whom are doling out weapons and cash to Ukraine and sanctions on Russia — without looking pathetically weak.
Any Western state is a problem for him, which is a problem for us because we’re not going to trust China to do it. And no country in the non-Western world has the relationships or political clout to do it, apart from maybe India, which is more concerned with keeping things sweet with Moscow and is therefore clearly unacceptable to the Ukrainians. Such is the desperation for mediators that last month saw the yarmulke-wearing Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett jetting off to Moscow to try to make some progress (“see how Putin big-dicked him by making him fly on Shabbat,” observed an Israeli friend to me). It didn’t seem especially serious.
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SubscribeHow ironic that Russia’s Tsar, Mr Putin seeks the help of the historic enemy, the dreaded Turk.
Just over three centuries ago another Russian Tsar, Peter the Great had much cause to be grateful to the (Ottoman) Turk. Having allowed his army of 40,000 odd to be encircled by an Ottoman army of 200,000; Peter was forced make a humiliating surrender. However the terms were not as punitive as they should have been thanks to a judicious bribe to the Ottoman commander, the redoubtable Baltaci Mehmet Pasha.*
Had Baltaci not accepted that bribe, Peter would have been taken naked, in a cage to Istanbul, and history would have been completely different as they say.
(* Exiled to Lemnos for this avarice.)
History would be different?
But why?
Your view of history as “actions of great men” is quite old fashioned.
Moscovy would recover under different Tsar and Ottomans would decline anyway (maybe more slowly)
Some trends are independent of great leaders.
Do you think Soviet Union collapsed because of leadership?
What matters are systems both in politics and business..
Thanks to UnHerd’s hopeless reply system it is too late to answer this criticism.
Two years ago they had an Infinitively better system called Disqus. Since then things have gone to pot I’m afraid.
The author’s headline indicates he doesn’t understand the real situation here.
However many men and weapons Putin has, almost all of his trained battle groups are already committed to the fight–and doing a very poor job. More men and more tanks, however advanced, are useless without training. That will require months–unless Putin simply wants to lose them all to a far more effective Ukrainian army.
Moreover, the most effective strikes are being carried out by precision guided weapons, of which Russia has a very limited quantity. They are designed for nuclear war, not conventional. Most significant, Taiwan’s embargo on chips means that it is unlikely most Russian equipment that has been lost will be replaced.
Erdogan’s real strategy is to prevent Russia from dominating the Black Sea. He is happily watching Russia bleed itself dry.
He knows at the end of this Putin will probably go, and Russia will no longer be a significant power–and that it may not even survive as a single state.
Minor note: headlines here are not author’s, they’re editor’s, and they’re often misleading and tuned to clickbait… It’s a real shame, but here we are…
You seem to be well informed. And I hope your right because The fate of the human race depends on it.
He knows at the end of this Putin will probably go, and Russia will no longer be a significant power–and that it may not even survive as a single state.
I am puzzled by your comment about “single state”.
Could you expand on that, please?
Weak Russia is great, but what is now Russia is fairly stable (ok, Caucasus excepted), unless you think that China will move in Siberia?
Which would not be in West interest anyway.
“The prospect of peace rests solely in Putin’s hands”. David, really?
When Germany invaded Poland then on a rampage through Europe was the prospect of peace, solely in Hitler’s hands?
No it was not. And thank goodness it was not.
Today, the inability to recognise that it is the West, and only the West (since the UN or its other member countries are unwilling), that can ensure peace in the region. Russia, under Putin, has broken the peace and has done so, since 2014.
Like Nazi Germany before it, peace must be imposed upon Russia by military, economic and diplomatic means. Peace is never guaranteed by one country alone and to think it is, is naïve.
With reference to your comment about Putin not caring about the lives of his soldiers, I’m reminded of Stalin’s remark that ‘One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic’.
‘Solely’. That’s it right there.