Mr. Putin has not demanded to annex Ukraine to make it a province of Russia. He does not even demand territory more than what he already has under his firm control, Crimea and some territory in the Donbass. That means, he has had no plan to take Ukraine and hold it. The 15 divisions, tanks, artillery, and air power are intended for show to scare the victim to get what he wants without actually using force. Just like a parade in Red Square with the colossal missiles which are probably empty metal tubes meant to impress an audience, Mr. Putin’s invasion prefaced with divisions of Russian draftee soldiers surrounding Ukraine was to impress Kyiv and the Ukrainian leadership. In a show, he does not have to deploy the real power.

He is stalled by the fierce resistance of the Ukrainians and unprepared to take Ukraine and hold it. He now realizes that he has underestimated the resolve of the Ukrainian people and miscalculated the reaction of the West. His threat has not achieved the intended goal. Things have turned around and suddenly he and his military have become a laughingstock. They are on the defensive. They are faced with the possibility that their military reputation is damaged, and its might is questioned.

Taking and occupying Ukraine may now be Mr. Putin’s objective. That presents real danger to Ukraine, and probably the world.

To do that, he would have to move some divisions from his elite military forces, the real fighters (the units that have a history of real combats including fighting Mao Zedong’s hard bitten Red Army) from the borders with China, to Ukraine. If he felt humiliated (and he may have), he would certainly do more with Russia’s considerable military power to prove that he meant business. He might be pushed to go through with it. The conflict would escalade and the danger to the world multiplies.

What unnerves everyone is the opaque policy of the West. We are still living in a world where the bully with physical power is given too much leeway. For a bully such as Russia, would a few Javelin and Stinger missiles do the job? Hardly. They are more symbolic than a real blow to the head of the bully. If Mr. Putin thinks that he can do Ukraine, the rest of the world should make him believe that we could do Vladivostok. Well, just a thought.

Russia must be made to understand that it has more real estate on earth than any other country that is extremely rich with undeveloped wealth. Tend to it, make it productive to elevate your people’s standard of living above the starving level.

In the 21^st Century, it is pervert and a crooked thinking for a country spanning 11 time zones to invade a small country to take a little bit of its land here and there for “national security” reason, a phony pretext for naked invasion. It has been more busy spending its resources to build weapons and engage in skirmishes along its long borders than developing the land it already has and improve the life of its people.

Unlike sending the parade show soldiers into Ukraine, Mr. Putin must be very careful sending in his elite, no-nonsense divisions. This time, things might get out of control, his or the West’s.

(PART 6)

In a battle, if one side abandons a strategy without another strategy to replace it, it is called defeat. That happened to Napoleon in Moscow and to Hitler in Stalingrad. They decided to stop the siege without knowing exactly what else to do next.

That experience was studied well by the Americans. Before the U.S. left Viet Nam, it was making sure that another strategy was under way and successfully carried out before it disengaged from Viet Nam. It had secretly negotiated with the Chinese and formed a working relationship with China. So, when it left Viet Nam, it was a brilliant move, a triumph, not a retreat or defeat.

So, when the U.S. withdrew from Syria and abruptly left Afghanistan, the world had to assume that before abandoning the use of military forces with the attending waste of economic resources, costs of human lives, and the possibility of triggering a nuclear war, the U.S.  had devised a new strategy. It turned out it was not a new one but a revised and much improved one: sanctioning.

Sanctions had been used before against a few countries by the U.S.  such as North Korea, Iran and even China. Mr. Putin probably calculated that the sanctions against Russia would not be really severe and the damage a price he was willing to pay for the grand prize of forcing Ukraine to be a vassal of Russia. Considering Europe’s heavy reliance on Russia energy, Russia being one of the world’s most prolific producers of oil, the democratic countries averse to war, and billions of dollars invested in Russia by European and American investors, he bet that Europe and the U.S. could not go far to punish Russia. In the past, U.S.’s sanctions, in many instances, did not receive unanimous support from its allies, especially Germany, which, in addition to the possible disruption of the current supplies of oil and gas by Russia, would not want to jeopardize the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline.

Mr. Putin was probably unprepared for the all-out sanctions against every aspect of life in Russia led by U.S. with the unanimous support of its allies. The costs to Russia are humongous. If the sanctions continued, there would be no doubt that the Russian campaign against Ukraine would stop, and Mr. Putin would lose his big gamble.

But the sanctions do cost the Allies also, albeit of a smaller scale and bearable. The outcome of Mr. Zelensky’s war against Mr. Putin’s aggression will depend on how far and how long the West is willing to go. As mentioned in an earlier article, if the West started pulling out their spreadsheet and balancing the pros and cons, there might be a compromised solution. But one thing is for sure, Ukraine would not be completely independent as Mr. Zelensky and his partners would want, and its territories might not be intact. Crimea and the Donbass might probably be officialized as Russia’s territories.

Let’s wish Mr. Zelensky and his people success and good luck. Let’s hope that the Democratic World led by the U.S. does not lose its principles and its will. Let’s hope that they do not impose an artificial and expedient solution on the Ukrainian people.

END.

Part 5:

It has been repeated, by Mr. Putin no less, that Ukrainians are Russians, the same, like brothers. One thing about brothers is they know one another well. Since 2004, with the loss of Crimea, the Ukrainians must have anticipated that their “brothers” would not let them alone. They, possibly at the prodding of NATO and the U.S., have learned the Russian strategies, their weaknesses, and their strengths.

Mr. Putin’s FSB and SVR must have done extensive research on Ukraine, its people and especially its leaders. They know quite a lot about the Ukraine and the Ukrainian people (they are “brothers”, remember?). But they did not know and could not have known well one person that counted. Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

One aspect of the Ukrainian political system is it is democratic. When, from nowhere, a candidate named Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected president of Ukraine, the Russian intelligent agencies did not know much about Mr. Zelenskyy except that he had been a comedian. Even if they had in-depth research on him, they would not have discovered his remarkable characteristics crucial for fighting a long battle against Russia: his unbelievable courage, energy, stamina, persistence and obviously he has the support of his people. These virtues would not appear in normal time but only under special and threatening circumstances like when a grandmother fighting off, successfully a lion with a broom when it tried to climb onto her trailer while her grandchild was sleeping. His strengths showed when Russia started bullying Ukraine. His brave efforts have inspired his people and people around the world.

Mr. Zelenskyy and his staff could not have forgotten Crimea. They had eight years to prepare for this invasion.

The Russians were very good at defending their own country against invading armies from Napoleon to Hitler. Their successes relied much on their deep knowledge of their local territories (and weather) and the support from the rear, which abundantly provided supplies and people for the Russian armed forces. They also succeeded in attacking small countries with no defense force. The Ukraine invasion is not a defense on their own territory, and Ukraine is not a small country, which also has received tremendous support all over the world, political, materials and weapons. The situation looks good for a Ukraine’s victory.

The question is whether the world will help Ukraine to fight until they get their independence and freedom back, or the big nations will take their spreadsheets out and start making decisions based on the balance sheet of the costs and profits affecting their economies.

Ukraine’s hope is also boosted by a historical fact: Russia cannot be trusted to get rid of their bullying nature and learn to adopt democratic institutions and deal with other nations in a civilized manner. Therefore, the U.S. and Western Europe must have seen the need to devise and have devised and perfected an effective post-Afghanistan strategy to deal with it.

(Next, Part 6)

PART 4

The images (in one, Mr. Putin sat at one end of a very long table and all his aides lumped together at the other end, in the other picture, he sat alone at a table in a huge room and everybody else was standing against the opposite wall far away from him) seem to support the speculation that Mr. Putin has increasingly acted in a dictatorial manner, not consulting with anyone in a meaningful manner. The huge spaces between Mr. Putin and his aides shown in the pictures give the impression of his being aloof and alone.

It is difficult to think that the Russians, among the most intelligent people on earth, did not see that an invasion of Ukraine would be a terrible and unforgivable decision. Mr. Putin’s aides, or some of them who had the courage, must have advised against such move. Obviously, if that was the case, Mr. did not listen.

Why there are people who still think that their thinking or actions are perfect needing no improvement? That is the belief of dictators of the world, people with power. They don’t listen to others, ignoring Confucius’s saying that if I walk with three other people, one of them can be my teacher. It’s regrettable that Mr. Putin has fallen into that crack as he had shown a tremendous ability to think rationally and reasonably.

He probably is the victim of the Russian political tradition restraining him and everyone else who wants to move up the Russian leadership: fighting ferociously and preemptively, giving your opponent no chance to raise its head. If your opponent emerges through your no mercy strike, you just resign to the fact that it is just a game, albeit a deadly game. You must just constantly look over your shoulder. You trust anyone, even your closest aide, at your peril. Mr. Putin at one time seemed to disagree with that tradition and try to embrace Democracy [people in a Democracy do stab others in their back too but with finesse, more humanly, fairly and artistically (here again in need of a better word)]. He saw that Democracy made political sense. But the Russian system is never a good soil for Democracy to grow. Even after Glasnost, it has made no progress on the ability to listen to different opinions without getting into a rage. It did not allow Mr. Putin to pursue Democracy without endangering himself.

It is not farfetched to speculate that Mr. Putin did not have a free give and take discussion before ordering the attack on Ukraine. That is his mission and the mission of other Russian likeminded politicians. They felt incumbent on themselves to make the decision to attack and let no one present an alternative. That passionate sense of mission has caused them to lose patience and commit a huge misstep.

He overlooked two crucial and possibly decisive factors: the will of the Ukrainians to resist his quest to dominate them and the U.S. and Western Europe’s strategy to deal with his country post-Afghanistan.

(Next, Part 5)

PART 3:

In making the decision to invade Ukraine, Mr. Putin seems to have been carried away, away from rationality, away from a correct reading of history and current events. His passion and hubris overcame his heretofore caution, deliberateness and patience.

There had been examples of Mr. Putin’s political and military aggressiveness, which were of limited scope and purpose. The Chechen war was more a Russian internal affair pacifying an Islamic insurrection and terrorism than a part of a grand scheme. Up until the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, his talks and speeches were measured, indicating a man of careful thoughts and consideration.

However, his public statements and deeds indicated early that he had a plan, a grandiose plan and he has pursued it deliberately and determinedly. It also shows a man having a Napoleon (short man) complex wanting to do big things for big glory and to bully at any chance he gets.

A small man, he has tried to project a macho image riding a horse bare chested, unleashing his large Labrador in a small room where he received former German chancellor Angela Merkel who had been known to be scared of dogs. Reading unfavorable comments in the German media, he of course said that he did not mean to scare her. But the picture of a clear smirk on his face belies his explanation.

He advocated the aggression doctrine of striking your opponent first if a fight was inevitable. As if to publicize it, at least 10 of his political opponents were killed very publicly. One may argue that he just followed the Russian tradition of killing his enemies wherever they could be found. Joseph Stalin pursued his nemesis Leon Trotsky 11 years until he had him killed in Mexico.

His speech after Crimea was taken by Russia shows him to be a passionate and angry man:
“They have lied to us many times, made decisions behind our backs, placed us before an accomplished fact. This happened with NATO’s expansion to the East, as well as the deployment of military infrastructure at our borders. They kept telling us the same thing: ‘Well, this does not concern you.’ That’s easy to say.’”

He is resentful and his resentment had probably simmered for a long time. He has felt the indignity of his country and took it upon himself to do something about it such as restoring if not all then at least some territories of the former Soviet Union. He wants to bring back the glory and respect that he believes Russia deserves.

He closely followed the U.S.’s military and political ventures in Afghanistan and Syria with deep interest. He went into Crimea because he saw that the U.S. was bogged down in the Middle East and Afghanistan. In 2022, when the U.S. decided to withdraw from Afghanistan, he saw his golden opportunity and made his move on Ukraine on the wrong assumption that the U.S. and its allies had lost their will to confront Russia.

Contrary to what he said in his After-Crimea speech, he followed the same old bully strategy. There was no referendum by the Ukrainians, there was no freedom of choice. In his speech he asked us, the American people: “Isn’t the desire of Crimea’s residents to freely choose their fate such a value?” When it comes to the desire of the Ukrainians, he just ignored it and bullied through Ukraine’s borders with divisions of infantry, artilleries, and air power, without asking the Ukrainians for their free choice, the same bully strategy he had used in Georgia and Chechnya.

To make the desire of the Ukrainians even much less significant, he got his nuclear weapons ready and publicly announced it.
(Next, Part 4)

PART 2.
Ironically, Mr. Putin took the opposite position in 2008, when Kosovo declared independence. He vehemently objected to the move. Now, he cited Kosovo as a precedent for his action against Ukraine:
“We keep hearing from the United States and Western Europe that Kosovo is some special case. What makes it so special in the eyes of our colleagues? It turns out that it is the fact that the conflict in Kosovo resulted in so many human casualties. Is this a legal argument? The ruling of the International Court says nothing about this. This is not even double standards; this is amazing, primitive, blunt cynicism. One should not try so crudely to make everything suit their interests, calling the same thing white today and black tomorrow. According to this logic, we have to make sure every conflict leads to human losses.”
He conveniently ignored the fundamental differences between the cases of Kosovo and of Ukraine.

Violent ethnic conflict was going on for years between the Albanians who represented 90% of the population in Kosovo and the Serbs minority supported by the Yugoslavia central government, which carried out an ethnic cleansing program against the Albanians. Despite his claim to the contrary, there was no crack down or ethnic conflict between Ukrainians and Russians in Crimea or Ukraine.

For nine years, the Yugoslavia government and Kosovo engaged in talk but failed to agree on a solution because the government refused to make concessions on crucial issues. Only then, Kosovo democratically elected parliament voted to declare independence. That did not happen in Crimea. Only a month after a new government was formed in Kyiv, Crimea declared independence and held a referendum to unite with Russia. Strikingly, a foreign country that is Russia, took over the Crimean parliament by military force, replaced the prime minister with a separatist leader whose separatist party had received only 4% of the votes of the Crimeans in the last election. There was no negotiation regarding the status of Crimea.

Mr. Putin argued that “Russia’s Armed Forces never entered Crimea; they were there already in line with an international agreement.” It is sophism and a strange argument. According to his theory, the Americans could just surround Seoul or Tokyo with the armed forces already on their soil and force the South Korean or Japanese parliament to declare them to be a part of the U.S. And for Mr. Putin, it would clearly be totally acceptable.

Mr. Putin likened the case of Crimea to Kosovo. They are hardly comparable.

Kosovo referendum in 1991 presented a choice between independence and staying with Serbia. The Crimea referendum deliberately eliminated Ukraine as a choice for the Crimeans because it allowed them only two choices: becoming a part of Russia or independence. Either way, Ukraine would lose Crimea. The choices were clearly dictated by Russia with the help of at least a division of Russian armed forces stationed inside Crimea.

With such an uncivilized, undemocratic, and violent strategy against Crimea, he destroyed the good will he had been building up since assuming the top job in Russia. In the eyes of the world, he suddenly pulled himself and his country down to a primitive level.

The invasion of Ukraine is probably the worst political and military blunder he has committed.
(Next, Part 3)

PART 1:

In a speech to the Russian parliament right after invading and annexing Crimea, at the time a part of Ukraine, the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin said this:
“…The total population of the Crimean Peninsula today is 2.2 million people, of whom almost 1.5 million are Russians, 350,000 are Ukrainians who predominantly consider Russian their native language, and about 290,000–300,000 are Crimean Tatars, who, as the referendum has shown, also lean towards Russia.”

He explained his decision:
“We had to help create conditions so that the residents of Crimea for the first time in history were able to peacefully express their free will regarding their own future. However, what do we hear from our colleagues in Western Europe and North America? They say we are violating norms of international law. Firstly, it’s a good thing that they at least remember that there exists such a thing as international law – better late than never.
Secondly, and most importantly – what exactly are we violating?”

He then cited international laws:
“Article 2, Chapter 1 of the United Nations Charter, the UN International Court agreed with this approach and made the following comment in its ruling of July 22, 2010, and I quote: ‘No general prohibition may be inferred from the practice of the Security Council with regard to declarations of independence,’ and ‘General international law contains no prohibition on declarations of independence.’ Crystal clear, as they say.
“I do not like to resort to quotes, but in this case, I cannot help it. Here is a quote from another official document: the Written Statement of the United States America of April 17, 2009, submitted to the same UN International Court in connection with the hearings on Kosovo. Again, I quote: ‘Declarations of independence may, and often do, violate domestic legislation. However, this does not make them violations of international law.”’End of quote. They wrote this, disseminated it all over the world, had everyone agree and now they are outraged. Over what? The actions of Crimean people completely fit in with these instructions, as it were. For some reason, things that Kosovo Albanians (and we have full respect for them) were permitted to do, Russians, Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars in Crimea are not allowed. Again, one wonders why.”

He was righteous and indignant, the reaction and action of a Russian patriot. The first time you heard it, it sounded reasonable and balanced. The speech had the effect of lowering the decibel of the criticism from the West, which took no significant action against Russia.

But coming from the head of a major and influential country who had vowed to democratize Russia (but in a slower pace), it is dubious, nearsighted, and dangerous. His geo-political stand is unsupportable. His statement without stating pre-conditions is irresponsible because it advocates instability and riots in many parts of the world as almost all countries have enclaves of different ethnic groups. Mr. Putin advocates any ethnic group in any country, the American Indians, the Muslims in France, the Poles in Germany or the Germans in Poland, the Chinese in Eastern Russia or the Korean in Japan, to organize a referendum and declare independence or become part of their original countries. No one seriously believes he meant what he said and would happily and helpfully allow, say, the Chinese in Eastern Russia to form an independence nation or become a part of China.

He could have adopted the correct approach, in fact the only approach in our modern and more enlightened time, that is true Democracy where the voice of EVERYONE can be heard, the majority has consideration for the minorities and the minorities respect the majority’s decisions.

He could have adopted the method used in solving the Kosovo problem to solve the supposed grievances of the Russians in Ukraine or even in Crimea, and he could have won the hearts and minds of not just the Russian and Ukrainian people but the world.

(Next, Part 2)