The story goes on under the ad “Time is not on Putin’s side,” said Tatiana Stanovagya, a Russian political analyst and founder of the consulting firm R. Politik. He noted that as the war progresses and sanctions are imposed, the effects of the war on Russia are likely to worsen. In Warsaw on Saturday, President Biden appeared to sharply widen Washington’s confrontation with Putin, saying the Russian leader “can not stay in power” in a speech that ended a trip focused on talks with his allies. Foreign Minister Anthony Blinken said Sunday that Biden was not calling for “regime change” but stressed that Putin “could not be authorized to wage war”. President Biden met with Polish President Andrzej Duda and Ukrainian refugees before his speech outside 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 occupied much of southern Ukraine at great cost, almost completing a “land bridge” from Russian territory to Crimea, which Russia forcibly annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Ukraine’s two largest cities, have stopped. Efforts have been made to extend the southern land grab to the west to include Mykolaiv and Odessa. The story goes on under the ad A senior NATO official on Wednesday estimated that the Russian military had lost between 7,000 and 15,000 troops in just one month, more personnel than the United States had lost in Iraq and Afghanistan combined for 20 years. Thousands more Russian forces have been injured. Michael Koffman, a Russian military analyst at the CNA research team in Virginia, said significant Russian losses did not necessarily appear to be a political constraint on Putin at home, but rather hindered the effectiveness of his units in battle. At some point, Coffman said, the large number of Russian troops killed or wounded affects the morale and ability of commanders to campaign. The Russian military’s plan for the new conscripts begins on April 1, and Putin will need to issue a decree in the coming days on how many new soldiers the Russian Defense Ministry should recruit. It will also have to decide whether to keep the existing conscripts due to the losses in Ukraine. The continuation of a multifaceted war in the long run will require significantly more forces and a wider mobilization that has not yet been undertaken by the Kremlin. The story goes on under the ad “In April, they have to make a decision about what to do with the human resources and the extent to which they are willing to support a major war of this magnitude far beyond what they intended,” Coffman said. “Will they commit to a major war or will they see where they can go in the next two weeks?” The Ukrainian resistance, and even successful attacks to retake territory by the Russians in some areas, could also limit what Putin believes can be achieved and force him to recalibrate his goals. At the same time, Russian forces are having difficulty maintaining supply lines on multiple fronts. But Coffman said Putin’s decisions depend largely on the information he sees and what they tell him. The US intelligence services regularly estimated before the war that the Russian leader was receiving bad information from his close circle of advisers. “The big question is, what does Putin know about this war?” said Coffman. “What is his perception of the reality of the battlefield?” “What does the military leadership tell him about their prospects for success?” He added: “Does he believe that the continued use of force can really achieve any of his political goals in Ukraine? Or does he just not pay attention when you tell him something to do? The story goes on under the ad Nick Reynolds, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said the Kremlin would face restrictions on ammunition, manpower and morale, as well as logistics. These realities may force Putin to change his goal from overthrowing the Ukrainian government to drastic changes in Ukrainian political stance, or to focus the war on a single front. Reynolds particularly pointed out the limitations of human resources. “It is clear that Russia is looking very hard at personnel,” Reynolds said. “It’s not so much human resources. He is trained and motivated human resources. “ Accelerating arms deliveries to Ukraine from the United States and Europe will also create more constraints on Russian forces. These include Switchblade drones from the United States that could be particularly damaging to Russian forces in the civil war. Putin has so far managed to survive sanctions imposed on Russia by continuing to sell oil and gas to customers such as China and India outside Europe, and forcing Russian energy exporters to buy rubles with this revenue, preventing the complete collapse of the currency. With high world energy prices and a moderate devaluation of the ruble, Putin is likely to have cash at his disposal to cover Russian public spending and spend on stimulus. The story goes on under the ad However, economic winds are likely to worsen for Russia as GDP contracts and unemployment rise, and new escalations on the battlefield could lead to new sanctions. In the meantime, Moscow will find itself increasingly dependent on goods and technology from China, Turkey, Israel and other nations that have not imposed sanctions on Russia over the invasion. Putin’s ability to keep these countries, especially China, on the sidelines as the war continues will affect what the Russians can buy, access and produce. Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center who specializes in Russian relations, says Beijing will not want to be seen as activating Putin’s war machine or endangering Western operations, so it is unlikely to violate sanctions or not. will supply arms pipeline. “Otherwise, there is a fierce game of opportunity, cheap commodity markets and the acquisition of the most advanced military technology,” Gabouev said. “China will be smart to continue to pursue this.” For weeks, US and European officials have sought to see if the war is causing a rift in the Russian elite, especially in the intelligence and military circles around Putin, a possible constraint on the former KGB officer as the war continues. The story goes on under the ad Despite reports of clashes within the Russian security establishment and questions about the public absence of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov, no apparent rupture has been publicly confirmed. The only senior Russian official to leave the country due to the war so far is Anatoly Chubais, the Russian envoy for sustainable development. Stanovaya, a political analyst, has rejected the idea that Russia’s security elite, often referred to as siloviki, would rise up against Putin, especially under the conditions in which he has enormous power. “Today, it is impossible to imagine such a thing,” he said. “There is no dissatisfaction between the security services. “These are all fairy tales.” Broad sanctions against Russia’s elite reduce the likelihood of any public split with Putin, Stanovaya said, because members of the sanctioned elite have nowhere to go, such as shelters in Europe, if they decide to disagree. The story goes on under the ad For years, Putin offered the Russians stability and economic growth, even though they exchanged their political freedoms for a more authoritarian system. Economic shrinkage due to sanctions could make it impossible to present living standards as an achievement. “Now Putin has to offer something else to the Russian people. It no longer has an economy, “said Kirill Martynov, political editor of the Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta. “And it seems that what can feed the Russians is a kind of political greatness: Look, we just got back to the club of the big countries. “Every European leader wants to talk to me about why I am so important and so dangerous.” Martinov said the appeal of the message would diminish if economic conditions became particularly difficult, although the government was likely to continue to focus on geopolitical events as a distraction. “I mean, if you can do nothing with your economy and you can do nothing with your society, all you can do is be quite dangerous,” he said. “Putin can start any war he wants.”
