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Experts told Fox News that Russian President Vladimir Putin underestimated the strength of Ukrainian resistance, as well as the strong reaction from the United States and Western allies, when he invaded Ukraine last month.
On Tuesday, the US continued to impose sanctions on Russia, banning oil imports from the country in what President Biden called “another massive blow to Putin’s war machine.”
“Putin miscalculated in the willingness of Ukrainians to fight, the style of leadership and the willingness to die for the cause [Ukrainian] the president [Volodymyr] Zelensky,” Rebecca Koffler, a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer and author of The Putin Book: Russia’s Secret Plan to Defeat America, told Fox News Digital. segment of the Russian population opposed to the war.
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Zelenskiy, who has already survived three assassination attempts, vowed to stay in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv while Russian forces besiege the city, even revealing his whereabouts in a defiant message on Monday.
“On Bankova Street,” Zelenskiy said on Monday, referring to where the president’s offices are located. “I’m not hiding and I’m not afraid of anyone.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that would allow journalists to be sentenced to 15 years in prison for spreading so-called “fake” news about his military invasion of Ukraine. (Yuri Kochetkov/Pool via AP)
Unarmed Ukrainian civilians clashed with Russian soldiers as thousands of foreigners traveled to Eastern Europe to help the Ukrainian army defend the country.
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As the Russian military attempts to seize Ukrainian cities, unprecedented sanctions on Russian banks, oligarchs and industrial enterprises could challenge Putin at home.
“Sanctions could make it very difficult to govern Russia, in the sense that people’s savings will be destroyed, factories will begin to close, and there will be fewer high-tech imports that the Russian economy needs. the elite have suffered a real defeat,” Timothy Fry, professor of post-Soviet foreign policy at Columbia University, told Fox News Digital.
In this March 8, 2022 video provided by the Press Service of the President of Ukraine and posted on Instagram, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky speaks in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Press Service of the President of Ukraine via AP)
Companies began pulling out of Russia almost immediately after Putin’s invasion, both because of Western sanctions and their disapproval of the war. Food giants Starbucks, Coca-Cola and Pepsi joined in on Tuesday’s recall.
“At some point, Putin, who has not accepted any domestic political instability for a long time, may be afraid of the reaction of the elite and the mass public and start looking for a way out of this situation, but we are not there yet,” Fry said. “It may take a while before we get there.”
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Putin, a former KGB officer known for his ruthless information warfare tactics, also failed to consider how the war would play out in 2022.
“[Putin] I did not expect how technology has brought this conflict into the homes of ordinary people around the world, by virtue of the fact that it is unfolding on our televisions and on the screens of our computers, Koffler said. – He counted on the fact that he could keep it hidden not only from the Russian people, but also from the rest of the world. Well, that’s not the case anymore.”
In the past two weeks, Russian authorities have cracked down on dissent by blocking independent and foreign news outlets and blocking access to social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
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While Putin still controls the flow of information within the country and it’s hard to pick up the pulse of public opinion in Russia, Fry said things could change.
“The message will be slow to get through, especially if the military gets stuck hard,” Fry said. “This is an extremely volatile time, I think, in Russian public opinion towards the war.”