RUSSIAN RETRIBUTION AND REGIME CHANGE

We are now dealing with the fact that, in little more than a month, the war in Ukraine has been abruptly transformed from a grueling, largely static artillery battle all sides expected to last into the winter, to a rapidly escalating, multilevel conflict that has challenged the strategies of the United States, Ukraine and Russia, with Ukrainian forces clearly outfighting their opponents and demonstrating superior capability on the battlefield.

This past Friday, on Vladimir Putin’s 70th birthday, an explosion believed to be a large truck bomb destroyed a section of the Kerch Bridge, which connects Russia to Crimea. It is a new construction, specifically ordered by Putin in 2014 and completed in 2018. When Russia invaded Ukraine the first time, in 2014, there was no such bridge, no road connection between Russia and Ukraine's Crimean province. From the perspective of Ukraine, Crimea is a peninsula. From the perspective of Russia, Crimea is an island.

The Yard Punk quite rightly saw the attack, coming as it did on the day it happened, as a direct attack on himself and his leadership of the war.

The Russians responded by launching 84 attack drones, 43 of which hit their targets in Kyiv during rush hour - evidence they were intended to maximize civilian casualties. Kyivans took refuge in the extensive subway system. The Yard Punk claimed the missile strikes were in response to the Kerch bridge attack, and called it “an act of terrorism aimed at destroying critically important civilian infrastructure.” In fact, the Kerch bridge is used by the Russian military as one of the main resupply routes to its forces in eastern and southern Ukraine.

The Kerch Bridge was completed in 2018, as a way for Russia to control Crimea, which it claimed to have annexed from Ukraine. This year, it has been used to supply Russian troops, carrying out a war of atrocity in Ukraine. The damage to the bridge will make it harder for Russia to supply the troops occupying Crimea and other parts of southern Ukraine.

The explosion suggests not only the foolishness of this war for Russia, but more generally the self-destructiveness of Russian attempts to extend empire by force.

Everything that now happens, including the murderous missile attacks on Ukrainian cities, has to be understood in terms of the logic of Putin’s exposed position as a failed war leader. He is desperately trying to demonstrate to his hard-line critics that he is up to the task. The response will not leave Ukraine less determined or able to win this war. They will have the opposite effect.

Russian State Media’s Margarita Simonyan - who gives new definitions to the terms “evil” and “ignorant” every time she’s on-screen - called the bridge attack a ‘red line’ for Russia and expressed delight at the landing of our ‘little response’. Yet while the drones might satisfy urges for vengeance their impact will be limited unless they become part of a persistent campaign. Alexander Kots, a war reporter, has expressed his hope that this was not a ‘one-off act of retribution, but a new system for carrying out the conflict’ to be continued until Ukraine ‘loses its ability to function.’ Former President Dmitri Medvedev, who once appeared as a serious figure, has expressed his conviction that the goal of ‘future actions’ must be the ‘complete dismantling of the political regime in Ukraine.’

Such hopes are contradicted by the harsh reality of Russia’s position. Putin’s statement highlighted retribution. Russia lacks the missiles to mount attacks of this sort often; this attack dost $300-$700 million for the drones, and Russia does not have the capability to produce replacements. The Ukrainians are claiming a high success rate in intercepting many of those launched in this strike and there are already promises from the U.S. ad Germany to expedite delivery of other SAM air defense systems.

This is not therefore a new war-winning strategy but a sociopath’s tantrum. Putin’s anger is not only with the material consequences of the Kerch bridge attack, but that it showed him unable to defend Russian territory. For a man who built his career by cultivating an image as a resolute and ruthless strongman, nothing is more undermining than to appear weak and helpless. It is not ‘the political regime in Ukraine’ that is most at risk but Russia’s.

In most countries, and not just democracies, leaders who fail badly in war will not stay in power for long; the consensus view has been that Putin will avoid this fate. This is now being challenged without anyone having much of an idea about how he might go and what will replace him.

It no longer seems preposterous to suggest Russia can loser. The images of Ukrainians making Molotov cocktails have been replaced by those of highly professional forces on the move. The Russian army is a shadow of its former self, and its former self was less than it claimed. Over seven months of war its best units have been torn apart. Their replacements are often cobbled together using whoever happens to be available with valuable equipment captured by the enemy. Many senior commanders have been killed while the officer corps has been shredded. Troops at the front are demoralized. Moscow now faces the prospect of the attrition of its armed forces continuing as its occupation becomes increasingly untenable.

The main response to military failings so far has been to replace senior commanders. The most important change is that General Sergei Surovikin has been named as the overall commander of Kremlin forces engaged in Ukraine. Up to June he was in command of Russia's Aerospace Forces after which he was put in charge of forces in southern Ukraine. Before that he was a notorious commander of Russian air operations in Syria, which were conducted with notable indifference to humanitarian consequences; this no doubt appeared to Putin as a recommendation.

The other interesting item in his biography is that he was an active member of the attempted coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991, when he was responsible for the deaths of three anti-coup demonstrators. This led to one of his two spells in prison. The other was for arms trafficking. Some see him as a the ultra-nationalist’s rival to General Lapin for Gerasimov’s position as Chief of the General Staff.

Putin is in danger with men like this in charge. They might not be able to win a war in Ukraine, but they likely can organize a coup.

So far, everything the Yard Punk has done has made his country and military weaker and the enemy stronger and more determined. That’s not the way one wins a war.

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