But Putin faces certain tactical limitations on the battlefield, as well as some geopolitical and economic constraints. All of which will likely make his ability to wage a long war in Ukraine difficult, but far from impossible.
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“Time is not on Putin’s side,” said Russian political scientist Tatyana Stanovaya, founder of the consulting firm R. Politik. She noted that the war’s impact on Russia is likely to intensify as the war progresses and sanctions kick in.
President Biden appeared to sharply escalate Washington’s confrontation with Putin in Warsaw on Saturday, saying the Russian leader “cannot remain in power” in a speech capping a trip focused on talks with NATO allies. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that Biden was not calling for “regime change” but was making it clear that Putin “cannot be authorized to wage war.”
President Biden met Polish President Andrzej Duda and Ukrainian refugees before his speech at the Royal Castle in Warsaw on March 26. (Video: Joy Yi, Alexa Juliana Ard/The Washington Post, Photo: The Washington Post)
On the battlefield, Russia has at great expense gained control of much of southern Ukraine, nearly completing a “land bridge” from Russian territory to Crimea, which Russia forcibly annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Two of Ukraine’s largest cities have stalled . So there are attempts to extend the southern land grab westward to include Mykolaiv and Odessa.
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A senior NATO official on Wednesday estimated that Russia’s military has lost between 7,000 and 15,000 troops in just a month, more personnel than the United States has lost in Iraq and Afghanistan combined over 20 years. Thousands more Russian forces were injured.
Michael Kofman, a Russian military analyst at Virginia-based research group CNA, said that significant Russian casualties are not necessarily a political constraint for Putin at home, but hamper the effectiveness of his units in combat. At some point, Kofman said, a high number of Russian troops killed or injured will hurt commanders’ morale and ability to advance the campaign.
The Russian military’s enlistment of new conscripts will begin on April 1, and Putin must issue a decree in the coming days on how many new soldiers the Russian Defense Ministry must enlist. He will also have to decide whether to stick with existing conscripts due to losses in Ukraine.
The continuation of a multi-front war requires significantly more forces and a broader mobilization, which the Kremlin has not yet undertaken.
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“In April they must make a decision about what they will do with their manpower and how far they are willing to wage a major war of this magnitude far beyond what they intended,” Kofman said. “Are they going to embark on a major war or see where they can get to in the next few weeks?”
Ukrainian resistance and even successful offensives to retake territory from the Russians in some places may also limit what Putin thinks he can achieve and force him to recalibrate his goals. At the same time, Russian forces are struggling to keep supply lines running on several fronts.
But Kofman said Putin’s decisions depend largely on what information he sees and what he’s told. Before the war, US intelligence regularly found that the Russian leader was receiving bad information from his inner circle of advisers.
“The big question is what does Putin actually know about this war?” said Kofmann. “What is his perception of reality on the battlefield? What does the military leadership tell him about their chances of success?” He added: “Does he think that the continued use of force can actually achieve any of his political goals in Ukraine? Or does he see the situation as one of declining returns?”
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Nick Reynolds, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said the Kremlin will face restrictions on ammunition, manpower and morale, and logistics. These realities could force Putin to change his goal from overthrowing the Ukrainian government to imperative changes in Ukrainian political stance or concentrating the war on a single front.
Reynolds specifically pointed out the staffing limitations. “It is clear that Russia is very actively recruiting,” Reynolds said. “It’s not that much staff. It is trained and motivated staff.”
Accelerating arms shipments from the United States and Europe to Ukraine will also result in further restrictions on the Russian armed forces. These include switchblade drones from the United States, which could do particular damage to Russian forces in urban combat.
Putin has so far survived the sanctions imposed on Russia by continuing to sell oil and gas alongside Europe to customers such as China and India, forcing Russian energy exporters to use those proceeds to buy rubles, thereby preventing a total collapse of the country’s currency. With global energy prices high and the ruble moderately depreciating, Putin is likely to have cash on hand to cover Russian government costs and spend on economic stimulus.
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Still, economic headwinds for Russia are likely to intensify as gross domestic product shrinks and unemployment rises, and fresh battlefield escalations could lead to new sanctions.
Meanwhile, Moscow will increasingly depend for goods and technology on China, Turkey, Israel and other nations that have not sanctioned Russia for the invasion. Putin’s ability to keep these countries, particularly China, on side during the ongoing war will affect what Russians can buy, access and produce.
Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center who specializes in Russian relations, reckons Beijing doesn’t want to be seen as an enabler of Putin’s war machine or a threat to Western businesses, so it’s unlikely to violate sanctions or deliver an arms pipeline . “Otherwise, there is a wild game of opportunities, cheap purchases of goods and obtaining the most advanced military technology,” Gabuev said. “China will be smart to pursue this further.”
For weeks, American and European officials have debated whether the war is causing rifts in Russia’s elite, particularly in the intelligence and military circle surrounding Putin, a possible restraint on the former KGB officer continuing the war.
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Despite reports of allegations within the Russian security apparatus and questions about the public absences of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov, no apparent splits have been publicly acknowledged. The only senior Russian official to have left the country so far because of the war is Anatoly Chubais, the Russian envoy for sustainable development.
Stanovaya, the political analyst, dismissed the notion that Russia’s security elite, often dubbed siloviki, would rise up against Putin, especially in these circumstances where they wield enormous power. “You can’t imagine something like that anymore,” she says. “There is no dissatisfaction among the security services. These are all fairy tales.”
The sweeping sanctions against the Russian elite reduce the likelihood of a public break with Putin, Stanovaya said, because sanctioned members of the elite have nowhere obvious to go, such as in Europe, if they choose to disagree.
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For years, Putin offered Russians stability and economic growth even as they traded their political liberties for a more authoritarian system. Economic contraction due to sanctions could make it impossible to present living standards as achievements.
“Now Putin has to offer the Russian people something else. He no longer has an economy,” said Kirill Martynov, political editor of the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta. “And it looks like he can feed the Russians some kind of political greatness: Look, we’re just back in the big countries club. Every European leader wants to talk to me because I’m so great and so dangerous.”
Martynov said the appeal of that message will diminish if economic conditions particularly deteriorate, although the government is likely to continue to focus on geopolitical events as a distraction. “I mean, if you can’t do anything with your economy and you can’t do anything with your society, the only thing you can do is be pretty dangerous,” he said. “Putin can start any war he wants.”