Moscow/Kyiv.
In a year of war in Ukraine, Russia’s president made many mistakes. A chronicle of Vladimir Putin’s failures and failures.
A regime overthrow in Kiev on February 24, 2022 is said to be just the beginning. Vladimir Putin wants to use military power to subdue Ukraine and push NATO out of Eastern Europe. The final goal is the creation of a new world order – and the end of the American age. But the President of Russia fails with this master plan. for now. After a year of war in Ukraine, we look back on the past twelve months – and on the mistakes that Putin committed during this time.
Ukraine war: On “Victory Day” Putin looks like a loser
On “Victory Day” of all days, Vladimir Putin looks like a loser. The wind tugs at the thinning hair and the manuscript of the speech. The President leafs through and muddles. Russia had no choice, he says, but to defend himself in Ukraine. NATO and the “Nazi regime” in Kiev had only been forestalled. Not a word about the victory, which seemed to be a formality in February. But on May 9, as Russia remembers its own heroic deeds in World War II, Putin speaks of death and loss. The “Hurrah” at the end of his speech sounds exhausted. The soldiers marching across Red Square answer feebly.
Ukraine Crisis – The most important news about the war
Of course, the Kremlin chief’s weary appearance on May 9 is only a snapshot. But Putin is beaming with genuine confidence in victory first year of war never out. Doing so is on the blood-soaked battlefields nothing has been decided in the Donbass for a long time. However, Putin must be measured against his own goals. And they go far beyond eastern Ukraine. What the Russian President has in mind when he announces the start of a “special operation” in the morning hours of February 24 is nothing less than a new world order. He follows a multi-stage master plan. The first goal is regime change in Kiev.
Putin had big plans – and failed many times
The establishment of a puppet government is intended to steer Ukraine away from west to guarantee. But this “homecoming” is only the beginning. It is intended to initiate a NATO rollback from Eastern Europe. In December 2021, Putin demanded that the US-led alliance must withdraw to its 1997 positions. When Brussels and Washington rejected the idea, the Kremlin chief traveled to China in early February. With head of state Xi Jinping, he issues a declaration that heralds the end of the American era. And everything should start in Kiev. More on this: Nato simply explained – That’s why it’s a nuisance for Putin
Russian paratroopers land there on February 24 to arrest or kill President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. At the same time, invading troops are advancing in the Donbass and in the south. The decisive blow, however, they deliver from the north against the capital. The parade uniforms are in the field pack. Putin is sure that the people in the neighboring country will happily greet his soldiers. But nobody in the Ukraine cheers. Instead, Zelenskyj’s special forces eliminate the Russian “killer squad”.
War Crimes and Terror as a Russian Response to Failure
So Putin already fails with his first and most important goal. Because without the overthrow of the government there can be no quick victory in Ukraine and no rollback by the West. Instead, the “special operation” becomes a real war. But the invading army is not prepared for this. Russian soldiers report from the front that “unholy chaos reigns” in the troops. The offensive quickly grinds to a halt. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu is disappearing from the scene in Moscow these days. Has he fallen from grace? Also interesting: When will the war in Ukraine end? Three scenarios
The panic in Kremlin is within reach. No one has a plan B. When Shoigu reappears, his troops break the siege of Kiev. What they leave behind causes horror around the world. In Bucha, an insignificant suburb, the streets are littered with the bodies of civilians. Tied up, tortured, shot. And it’s just the start. The longer the fighting lasts, the clearer it becomes that Putin is relying on terror out of necessity to fail.
There were already indications of this in March, when the Russian air force reduced the port city of Mariupol to rubble. Hundreds die when a laser-guided bomb hits a theater where civilians are sheltering. In April, several rockets hit the Kramatorsk train station in eastern Ukraine, where women and children are waiting to be evacuated. 57 people die. It will become clear by autumn at the latest that this is a targeted strategy. The attackers use Iranian drones to destroy transformer stations and thermal power stations. People should freeze and starve so that they can spirit of resistance lose. But nothing will come of it.
Putin underestimates Ukraine – and thereby commits his biggest mistake
It’s fine Putin’s greatest strategic failurethat he fundamentally misjudges his opponents. Terror from outside is forging Ukraine inside. At the same time, Putin is losing the battle for world public opinion. In the UN General Assembly, a rarely large majority of 141 states condemned the aggression. The images of the tortured and massacred seem to prove Joe Biden right. “Putin is a butcher,” says the US President. He swears the West on a long fight. And everyone goes with them.
In April, envoys from around 50 countries met for the first time at the US Air Base Ramstein in Rhineland-Palatinate and agreed on a permanent one military aid for Ukraine. But there is more: the neutral northern states of Sweden and Finland are applying for NATO membership. Instead of a rollback, Putin gets another expansion of the alliance – even if Turkey initially blocks the implementation. But Berlin became the scene of Putin’s heaviest defeat. “We are experiencing a turning point,” declared Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the Bundestag just three days after the start of the war. Scholz announces 100 billion euros for the Bundeswehr and weapons aid for Ukraine.
The end of “change through trade”: Germany takes a clear stance against Putin
What is crucial, however, is that he is terminating the strategic partnership with Moscow. Since Cold War all federal governments have opted for “change through trade”. With fatal consequences. When Putin deployed his army, the German economy depended on gas from Russia like a “junkie”. “In the Kremlin, they thought they had Germany in their pockets,” explains historian Anne Applebaum. A misconception. Scholz stops the Nord Stream II pipeline before the start of the war. Within a few months, Russian gas can be replaced. Thats expensive. But Putin’s attempt to blackmail the federal government by stopping deliveries has failed. Berlin is also going along with sanctions that hit Germany.
The explosion of the Nord Stream Pipelines in September. An act of sabotage for which only a state has the means. Experts agree on that. To date, there is no evidence of a perpetrator. What is clear, however, is that in those days the Kremlin demolished the last bridges that lead to the west. Shortly before the pipeline was blown up, Putin confidant Dmitry Medvedev declared: “Russia has chosen its path. There is no turning back.” Putin announces the annexation of four Ukrainian regions and orders partial mobilization in Russia.
Ukraine war – background and explanations for the conflict
Despite many mistakes: Putin continues to focus on victory in Ukraine – because he has to
“Everything for victory” is the message intended to make one forget humiliating defeats. The Ukrainians sink the “Moskva”, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, and destroy parts of the Crimean Bridge. In the summer they flee Kremlin troops panicked from the Kharkiv region. In the autumn they leave Cherson, defeated. However, the mobilization increases the domestic political risk for Putin. In the first months of the war he easily managed to nip any resistance in the bud. The power apparatus works as smoothly as the propaganda machine.
The state media hammers the people the tall tale from the “special operation against Nazis”. They talk about the aggressive NATO and the nuclear threat that supposedly emanates from the West. So it seems only logical that Putin, for his part, is threatening a nuclear strike. The verbal “game with the apocalypse” is intended to increase fear: in Ukraine, in the West, but also in Russia itself. Fear is intended to paralyze the country. That succeeds. Only hardliners who call for more brutality in Ukraine are critical.
Success after a year of Ukraine war: Putin remains the strong man in Russia
At the end of the first year of the war, Putin is as unchallenged as at the beginning. This is probably his biggest Success. Globally, however, he is deep on the defensive. At the Eurasia summit in September, rows of other heads of state keep him waiting. Xi Jinping is increasingly annoyed by the never-ending nuclear threats. He is still distancing himself ahead of the G-20 summit in November, where Russia is isolated. Putin doesn’t even come. He already broke with the West long ago.
A year after the start of the war, one thing is clear: the Russian president not only misjudged the West, which he considers decadent and weak, but above all Ukraine. With his plan to force a new world order with weapons, he is on the whole line failed. And yet: the balance sheet is no more than an interim balance sheet. Putin has not given up on his goals. The Ukrainian leadership expects a Russian offensive in the coming weeks.
More articles from this category can be found here: Politics
