Vladimir Putin Russia Ukraine war

The Russian invasion of Ukraine was meant to secure Vladimir Putin's place in history and reunify what Moscow views as the divided lands of historic Russia.

The war in Ukraine is a watershed event for the entire world that will shape the geopolitical landscape for many years to come. “The amount of animosity from the average Ukrainian towards the average Russian is already huge and growing more with every single new airstrike, every new civilian death. The savagery of the Russian assault has forced many Ukrainians to dramatically rethink their attitudes toward Russia. While relations have always been far more complex that the simplistic “brotherly nations” propaganda promoted by the Kremlin, millions of Ukrainians and Russians have traditionally enjoyed strong mutual bonds. It is also striking that many of Russia’s most brazen war crimes have targeted the same Russian-speaking Ukrainians that Vladimir Putin has long claimed to be protecting. It will take many decades before the hatreds of this poisonous war subside. Polls consistently demonstrate strong Russian public backing for the invasion, while anti-war protests in Russia have been small and underwhelming. After Moscow’s initial blitzkrieg plans were derailed by the Ukrainian military, the Kremlin has switched tactics and is increasingly focusing its efforts on the indiscriminate bombing of towns and cities. In his notorious 7,000-word July 2021 essay “ On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” Putin laid out his imperialistic vision of Ukraine’s place within a wider Russian world and argued that any sense of a separate Ukrainian identity was artificially manufactured. During the first three weeks of the war, Russian troops have committed countless individual atrocities against the civilian Ukrainian population. With the conflict now in its fourth week, it is already clear that Putin’s invasion has backfired disastrously. This fixation has included frequent declarations that the two nations inhabit a single historical whole and have been unnaturally separated by the fall of the USSR. “I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia.”

Putin's forces have exerted brutal force and destruction on much of Ukraine, but Russia has achieved few military victories.

The battle (and Russia's support) were seen as a turning point in the civil war, and cementing Assad's regime. Putin underestimated us and I think that the whole world underestimated us. He said Russia was now relying significantly more on air power and was hitting more civilian targets, such as a theater in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, where civilians were sheltering. They failed to do it and so the tactic and strategy has changed into a really grueling, grinding war." Meanwhile, thousands of civilians are still trapped in the city. "He just can't go further because our army is holding the ground. While many managed to evacuate the heavily destroyed city last week, intense fighting has continued with street battles taking place at the weekend. "And so time is working against them now," he said. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied that it targets civilians, despite the evidence to the contrary. Volker said that Russia's desperation for a quick win in Ukraine means that it is now resorting to what he described as "barbarian tactics" including "targeting civilians directly, shelling cities" to try to create "fear and exhaustion in the population." They are having trouble with ammunition. They're having trouble with supplies.