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Putin is no longer Russia's saviour The president appears as impotent as Boris Yeltsin

Can Putin save his legacy? Mikhail Klimentyev/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

Can Putin save his legacy? Mikhail Klimentyev/Pool/AFP/Getty Images


August 19, 2024   4 mins

At the start of this month, Kyiv’s exhausted forces seemed at last overwhelmed by their opponents’ superiority in manpower and firepower. But once again, they have defied expectations. The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ mass incursion into Russian territory has unfolded at lightning speed and with unexpected success. More than 1,000 troops now occupy a swathe of the Russian Federation’s territory, which Moscow is struggling to recover.

Ukraine has launched occasional smash-and-grab raids on Russia over the last two and a half years, but this attack is on another scale entirely — it is a bona fide invasion. Ukrainians are justifiably cock-a-hoop. Putin’s three-day war to conquer their country has resulted in what many commentators have claimed is the first invasion of Russia since the Second World War. The mood in ruling Russian circles could, meanwhile, hardly be bleaker. Moscow is struggling with a spluttering economy and a growing military recruitment problem — despite offering increasingly large cash bonuses to recruits, the number of newcomers is still matched by the number of casualties. Ukraine’s “terrorist” attack on Kursk, as the Kremlin is labelling it, adds more fuel to these fires. It is the most serious issue that Vladimir Putin has faced since February 2022.

Putin has a knack of escaping dire situations with his reputation intact. If we cast our minds back to his first days in power, we are reminded that his Russia has been marched on before — and that the president responded mercilessly. Will he do the same this time?

Twenty-five years before Ukrainian troops crossed the border on 6 August, the militant Shamil Basayev led roughly 2,000 men from Chechnya — legally a part of Russia but de facto independent since Boris Yeltsin’s embarrassing failure to suppress the territory in a war that ended in 1996 — into Russia’s Dagestan region. The troops killed Russian border guards, captured several settlements and declared an independent state. Basayev’s men would remain in Dagestan for a month before Moscow’s armed forces finally dislodged them. After the humiliations of the Nineties, Russia’s superpower status had been replaced by bankruptcy, the loss of empire and now the inability to militarily control its own territory.

Three days after Basayev’s attack on Dagestan, Putin was appointed Prime Minister of Russia. The attack was just what the new man in the Kremlin needed to underscore the difference between him and his impotent post-Soviet predecessors: a casus belli to win back Dagestan, re-invade Chechnya, make Russia whole again, and thus prove that a new leader would usher in an era of safety, stability and national pride.

Putin’s rhetoric in 1999 was, if not quite that of a firebrand, then certainly uncompromising. In September of that year, as the war in Dagestan turned into a war in Chechnya, and the war in Chechnya led to terrorist attacks on Moscow and other Russian cities, Putin declared: “We will pursue the terrorists everywhere. You will forgive me, but if we catch them on the toilet, we will wipe them out in the outhouse.” Within five years, the Chechen capital, Grozny, had been obliterated and 50,000 Chechen civilians were dead. Putin’s forces had piloted the scorched earth form of warfare that they have recently reprised in Ukraine. When it came to Russia’s “stability”, any means justified the ends.

The Chechen insurgency took half a decade to finally subdue, but the war made Putin’s name as somebody who would keep Russia safe, no matter the cost. In the minds of Russians, the war was a vital part of kickstarting a decade of unprecedented wealth and success. National humiliation was replaced by national pride.

“The Chechen war made Putin’s name as somebody who would keep Russia safe, no matter the cost.”

Can Putin, now an ageing incumbent, repeat the trick? Will the Kursk incursion be the “proof” that Russia needs to be “saved” from Ukraine — drawing international support? Threading such a fine-eyed needle will be tough for Putin. At the moment, Russian troops seem to be making no headway in responding to a well-equipped and trained Ukrainian army. The local population of Kursk are fleeing the invaders. Russians are expecting Putin to solve the problem, but few are leaping at the chance to help: only the promise of earning outlandish sums of money — between $1,600-$4,000 — for digging defensive trenches is drawing them in. Young conscripts, who are being deployed en masse for the first time in this war, seem more likely to surrender than to throw themselves into battle. But withdrawing experienced troops from occupied Ukraine to send to Kursk risks Putin’s gains after years of war.

Putin’s own behaviour this week stands in marked contrast to that of the arriviste of 1999. His response to the invasion — a mere “provocation” staged by a handful of “saboteurs” — has been conducted from the confines of the Kremlin. Publicly at least, it has been restricted to a single televised Security Council meeting. During this session with regional governors, Putin appeared either short tempered, cutting one politician short, or indifferent, as he listened to reports of evacuations and military preparations. His own words were limited to vague affirmations that something would be done: “We must assess the developments unfolding there, and we will offer our evaluation.” Unlike in 1999, Putin seems unwilling to associate himself with the invasion, and therefore unable to inspire the masses as he then did. Putin appears as impotent as Boris Yeltsin in 1999, when he meekly handed the baton over to his young successor.

Yet this apparent unwillingness to take the lead does not mean that Putin is helpless. In the early 2000s, the Chechen war was characterised by similar difficulties with conscription, bungling military failures and immense internal corruption. At times, the president was deluged with questions about his slowness to act. “Our army”, he explained, “is strong enough to “go all the way through [Chechnya] and back again. But that’s not the point. The point is to totally destroy the terrorists’ bases.” In the end, Putin waited for the moment to strike, then used every military means at his disposal to win. He might do the same again today. The question is: would Putin be willing to annihilate parts of Kursk to win back his territory? With his legacy at risk, he may yet restore his reputation as a man willing to sacrifice anything for victory.


Dr. Ian Garner is assistant professor of totalitarian studies at the Pilecki Institute in Warsaw. His latest book is Z Generation: Russia’s Fascist Youth (Hurst).

irgarner

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Right-Wing Hippie
Right-Wing Hippie
2 months ago

The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ mass incursion into Russian territory has unfolded at lightning speed and with unexpected success. More than 1,000 troops now occupy a swathe of the Russian Federation’s territory, which Moscow is struggling to recover.
Ukraine has launched occasional smash-and-grab raids on Russia over the last two and a half years, but this attack is on another scale entirely — it is a bona fide invasion.
If an invasion of Russia requires only a single battalion, one wonders why Napoleon and Hitler struggled so. All else aside, it’s a damning indictment of Russia’s military weakness. And it’s a testament to how unaccustomed to war we have become that we’re impressed by such puny numbers. A thousand men! The Union lost twelve times as many in a single day at Antietam.

David Yetter
David Yetter
2 months ago

I don’t think anyone is impressed by the numbers of Ukrainian troops involved other than by the degree of success achieved by such, as you put is, puny numbers.

jane baker
jane baker
2 months ago
Reply to  David Yetter

Makes you wonder if a bunch of turnip heads who make Dad’s Army look like efficient trained killers aren’t getting a bit of advice and help from their pals at the DJB.

Dougie Undersub
Dougie Undersub
2 months ago

There are 10,000 Ukrainian troops involved, not 1,000.

jane baker
jane baker
2 months ago

Ha ha ha. Pavlos not with em.
See Pavlo from Ukraine you tube. He is starting to sweat shit.

jane baker
jane baker
2 months ago

These sodgers are they actually battalions etc and properly constituted sworn in and signed up members of the Ukranian STATE ARMY or are they a rag bag of tossers and losers forced into unwilling service. Or are these ‘boots on the ground” actually paid militia,private war bands. We need another Brian Hanrahan to count them all in for us. We actually know (jackshit) NOTHING about the whole situation. Positions of troops. Defensive positions. Deployment of weaponry. Numbers,even names. For all we know they could be making it all up. Hint : they are.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago

I think the two fellows you mentioned actually wanted to conquer Russia, Ukraine doesn’t want that.

Ingbert Jüdt
Ingbert Jüdt
2 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

No, besides killing “Moskali”, they only want Regime Change and “Decolonization”, which is Western proxy war’s disguise of a conquest.

Ingbert Jüdt
Ingbert Jüdt
2 months ago

The article does not mention what many analysts already have pointed at: that the territory occupied at Kursk is of no strategic value (as Ukraine failed to seize Kursk Nuclear Power Plant) while extending a frontline AFU is already in pains to cover, and Russia is not diverting any troops (besides some drone operators) from Donbass, where they keep making progress towards strongpoints and important junctions. So yes, AFU caught Russia with her pants down causing embarrassment for Putin, but what undeniably is a tactical success and a propagandistic scoop nevertheless is also a strategic blunder. So as long as Russian forces keep dislodging AFU in Donbass, Putin can easily “sit out” the situation in Kursk.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  Ingbert Jüdt

I understand that Ukraine has captured a distribution facility through which gas flows from Russia to Europe. That might come in handy given the need to wean European nations off Russian gas. In fact, I’d say there is a high chance it will explode.

Ingbert Jüdt
Ingbert Jüdt
2 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

This pipeline runs through Ukrainian territory anyway, so if Kiev had wanted to shut it down it could have done so at any time. When Ukraine did so with an oil pipeline recently, this has not been well received in Slovakia and Hungary. But maybe Ukraine now wants to piss off more countries than only these two.

jane baker
jane baker
2 months ago
Reply to  Ingbert Jüdt

The Ukranians are stupid enough to cut off their nose to spite their face.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  Ingbert Jüdt

Yes, but they can now dig in around it, and have “Russian shelling” cause the destruction.

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
2 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Some people mistakenly think that Europe shut off all natural gas imports from Russia. It was the other way around. Russia shut off some gas supplies to Europe, forcing it to get gas elsewhere. But Europe would have continued to buy gas from Russia through the Nord Stream pipelines had they not been sabotaged. (Although it is true that Europe has been trying to reduce its reliance on Russian gas.)
The pipeline through Ukraine has been operating at full capacity throughout the war. That is because Ukraine gets paid for transit rights and because Ukraine decided to honor its contract with Russia to allow it. That contract ends at the end of this year and Ukraine is not expected to renew it. The pipeline will then presumably shut down.
So Ukraine gained nothing by capturing the pipeline metering station but a headache as it tries to administer occupied territory in Russia that has no value. Unlike Russia with Crimea and the Donbas, Ukraine doesn’t want Kursk.

Peter Buchan
Peter Buchan
2 months ago
Reply to  Ingbert Jüdt

Well put.
What never fails to amaze is the extent to which armchair pundits (and the assorted chattering classes of the West and its sock-puppet allies) keep a) prognosticating about “Putin’s” Russia and how it’s either “globally isolated” or “about to fall” (or both) while b) the narrative slowly shifts to expose the fallacies behind such blinkered, politically expedient projections – which is what they are.
Magical thinking belongs in fantasy books. In the real world these reckless, ahistorical and fatally flawed modes of thinking are not only destroying millions of lives, but everything the West once (believed it) stood for.
Purely intellectually speaking, seeing so many people being so ready to be wrong, again and again, for so long, would be comical if it hadn’t gotten so serious.
We are all in peril.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  Peter Buchan

Russia many not be “about to fall” (although stranger things have happened), but it is incumbent on the West to inflict as much misery as possible on Russia and its people by (pretty much) any means possible.

Ingbert Jüdt
Ingbert Jüdt
2 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

“… to inflict as much misery as possible on Russia and its people …”
All covered by the Noble Western Values of Freedom and Democracy(TM), of course! Russia has finally understood that, the BRICS have understood that, and more and more so-called Third-World countries are understanding this. It’s no easy task, but they’re finally going to pull the plug on the Dollar. Then let’s talk again about “inflicted misery”.

0 01
0 01
2 months ago
Reply to  Ingbert Jüdt

BRICS is the cryptocurrency of geopolitics, there’s some substance there, But lots of overhype, as well as lots of bad faith.

Anthony Taylor
Anthony Taylor
2 months ago
Reply to  Peter Buchan

Funny, but when you were talking about ” fantasy books” and “magical thinking” I thought you were meaning Bible, Koran, Torah, etc. Silly me.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
2 months ago
Reply to  Ingbert Jüdt

Unherd is just another propaganda piece direct from central London. The smug face of sayers tells it all
.

jane baker
jane baker
2 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Is “smug” a stupid person’s synonym for intelligent. You’ll be telling us McDs is a high end dining next.

Robbie K
Robbie K
2 months ago
Reply to  Ingbert Jüdt

It has strategic value because it is part of Russia. That does seem kind of significant to the bigger picture.

Fred Oldfield
Fred Oldfield
2 months ago
Reply to  Ingbert Jüdt

Quite….a foolish move in military terms that will eventually cost Ukraine very dear in men and machines and hasten its imminent collapse.. But Zelensky is incapable of taking the necessary backward step in order to regroup, as he will massively lose face.

Point of Information
Point of Information
2 months ago

Given that it has plenty of money but is running out of young men (willing) to join the army, is it only a matter of time before Russia starts to use mercenaries (on a much wider basis)?
If so, what does that say about Russian nationalism and will the rest of the world follow suit?

Brett H
Brett H
2 months ago

Interesting how you contrive something as a possible fact and then condemn Russia for your contrived fact.
If Russia runs out of young men because so many have died and it then uses mercenaries this is hardly a reflection on Russian nationalism. If it’s because young men refuse to fight then you may have a point.

Peter B
Peter B
2 months ago
Reply to  Brett H

It’s a well-documented fact that Russia has been using foreign mercenaries for a considerable time now.

jane baker
jane baker
2 months ago
Reply to  Peter B

So is The Thief or rather his DJB controllers.

Peter B
Peter B
2 months ago

Russia have been using foreign mercenaries for a long time now. This is old news.

Martin Bollis
Martin Bollis
2 months ago

Britain had a population of 46m at the start of WW1 and sustained casualty rates over 100,000 per month for large chunks of the war.

Russia’s population is 144m.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

Britain did have the Dominions from which it could draw.

jane baker
jane baker
2 months ago

They all already do. All sides are doing that Now. And have been for since the start.

0 0
0 0
2 months ago

Watch out what you wish for. What goes round comes round. We keep hearing how this or that will undermine the Russian regime, whereas it’s that in Ukraine that’s on life support, or should we say death support? And there are at least half a dozen European states whose governments are in greater difficulties than Russia and more likely to suffer regime change. Including Poland.

William Cameron
William Cameron
2 months ago
Reply to  0 0

We dont think so. Polands economy is booming.

jane baker
jane baker
2 months ago
Reply to  0 0

And all that freedom and democracy “we” are supporting the conflict so that Ukraine people can continue to enjoy it,The Thief has banned it anyway.

Martin Johnson
Martin Johnson
2 months ago

No reason to think the Chechen/Dagestan story won’t reprise. Yeltsin was already on the way out, with Putin his chosen successor. Even if Putin is now replaced, unlikely but possible, the next leader will be at least as aggressive in conducting this war.

Some people want to pretend Bill Burns never reported, back in 2007-08, that the Russian leadership class unanimously viewed Ukraine joining NATO as an existential threat to be stopped at all costs.

Western propagandists have painted this war as an illogical act by one power-mad dictator, Putin. That is a lie that nobody else in the world believes.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  Martin Johnson

If ordinary Russians want Ukraine “stopped” (from what, I am not sure) at “all costs”, then it is incumbent on the West to ensure that Russia pays those costs in lives and economic ruination.

William Cameron
William Cameron
2 months ago

Is this the “Special Military Operation” that Putin said would last a couple of weeks ?

jane baker
jane baker
2 months ago

No,that was Boris Johnson and Cummings and all the others at that time. Itll all be over by Xmas they said,only not which Xmas.Do you think Putin and his pals arent coining it as well. A lot of people ,not us,are making good profit from this ongoing low rumbling conflict. There is no good reason for them to end it. And Putin has offered,twice at least. Permanent war gives the media something to talk about to fill these empty hours and pages and gives our uppity servants the excuse to control us.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
2 months ago

Eventually, Putin is going to act like the dictator I keep being told that he is and unleash the troops to bring this to an end. How many more Ukrainians must be sacrificed to the Western fantasy of regime change in Russia, which holds no guarantee that the next guy is going to be a willing puppet of ours.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

Oh yeah. All the troops that are currently mowing Putin’s lawns, and cleaning his swimming pools no doubt.

mike flynn
mike flynn
2 months ago

Would Putin resort to scorched earth in Kursk? Russian territory? He’s Russian, no? What kind of question is that?

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
2 months ago

Vladimir Putin does increasingly seem to be old and tired, and probably sick as well. But there’s no one under him with enough power and experience to help shoulder the load. Not in government. Not in the military.
It will be interesting to see what happens if Donald Trump wins the White House and starts his talks with Volodymyr and Vladimir. If Kamala Harris wins, on the other hand, nothing of interest will happen.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

I’ll tell you what will happen in the first instance. A “ceasefire” will be reached, which Putin will promptly “tear up” once he has rearmed.

jane baker
jane baker
2 months ago

It’s all such nonsense. Who wrote this inadequate script? Sack them.Whoevers boots are on Russian ground it’s not Ukranian nationals for sure. It’ll be private mercenary paid for war bands hired by the USA interest but seemingly paid by The Thief. That is how War is now conducted. By roaming war bands or Militias hired by the biggest payer and no incriminating paper trails. Maybe Putins forces won’t need to fight them and kill them. Just offering them MORE money to change sides. Simples.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  jane baker

Oh, really? Where do you say these “mercenaries” are from?

jane baker
jane baker
2 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Many are Polish,but from all over the world. Brits,USA. They are paid independent soldiers. It’s what they do. In case you hadn’t noticed we now live in a feudal world again,just with tech. To keep us in place.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  jane baker

I know there are some foreign volunteers in the Ukrainian Army, but I doubt they comprise a big percentage of it.

Rocky Martiano
Rocky Martiano
2 months ago

The writer appears to be a Zelensky apologist.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago

Putin seldom appears happy in photos….

Andrew Boughton
Andrew Boughton
2 months ago

You are misreading it, via wishful thinking.

John Stokes
John Stokes
2 months ago

The Ukrainian invasion of Kursk is more a side-show rather than the strategic defeat of Russia that the author implies. The best Russian troops are in the Donbas region where they are continuing to push back the Ukrainians. As happened previously at Kursk in 1943, the Russians will accumulate reserves behind their lines and eventually go on the offensive. Perhaps wishful thinking by the author.