Where Will Putin's War Lead?

Serious question: What the hell is Putin's endgame?

We all know what he wants going into his invasion of Ukraine: Stop Ukraine from joining NATO and/or the EU, break the anti-Russian government leading Ukraine, install a pro-Russian (pro-Putin) regime to control Ukraine, rattle the rest of Europe - Poland, the Baltic states, even Finland and Sweden - into accepting Russia as a dominant power again, and expose NATO as a weak and ineffective alliance hopefully leading to its demise.

What he likely expected going in was an easy fight. Like all autocratic bullies, he viewed his victim Ukraine as a pushover. His opponent President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was an actor and comedian, a political lightweight. His puppet donald trump had disrupted as much military and financial support to Ukraine from the United States as he could get away with. trump's actions to disrupt NATO had to have left that European military alliance divided and unfocused.

What Putin got was a bloody nose, figurately speaking. 

Literally, five days into his ordering the invasion of Ukraine, what Putin has is an international PR nightmare, near-global condemnation of his war, escalating sanctions and lockdowns of every financial avenue Russia has - including cutting off banks from SWIFT, a transactional process that can arguably block the Russian citizenry and businesses from their own accounts - not to mention a tanking stock market, and nothing resembling a cakewalk into Kyiv to set up his puppet state.

Putin's rival Zelenskyy failed to flee the capital when the invasion started, instead using his media savvy to go onto social media and make a personal call to arms to every Ukrainian to stop the Russians approaching their major cities. Reported when asked by western powers to evacuate for his own safety, Zelenskyy answered "I need ammunition, not a ride." Sonofabitch (and I mean this in a cool way) is getting comparisons to freaking Winston Churchill, for God's sake.

It's still too early into the fighting, but far too many reports have gotten out about Russian heavy armor failing to reach objectives without enough fuel, Russian conscripts getting lost, and air transports getting shot down before they can deploy troops to seize vital structures (like Kyiv's airport). 

Russia's army is supposed to be this formidable behemoth. Rebuilt from the downturn of the Soviet Union collapse. Armed with the latest high-tech gear, reliable tanks, fearsome air strength, cyberwar capabilities. Five days in, and they're performing about as well as Iraqi forces did in BOTH Persian Gulf wars. It'd be hilarious if the bloodshed of Ukrainian civilians wasn't so painful.

Social media is filling up with clips of Ukrainians berating Russian tank units stranded along the roadside, or tractors dragging off Russian tanks left abandoned in the middle of nowhere. NO I AM NOT MAKING THAT UP.

If true, it’s probably the first tank ever stolen by a farmer… ))
Ukrainians are tough cookies indeed. #StandWithUkraine #russiagohome pic.twitter.com/TY0sigffaM

— olexander scherba🇺🇦 (@olex_scherba) February 27, 2022

And that's not even going into the heroism of the thirteen Ukrainian defenders of Snake Island, who refused to surrender to Russian ships with a defiant "Go fuck yourself." (Update 3/5/22: Those defenders may have survived but are likely POWs)

All of Putin's efforts to portray his invasion as a "peacekeeping" effort to "de-Nazify" Ukraine didn't sell well past his own sycophants. Nearly the entire world views him as a war criminal, and it's a view that's not going to go away if he tries to prolong this war any further.

There is welcome news that Ukraine and Russia are agreeing to peace talks, with Ukraine insisting they won't surrender, but that then begs the question just what the hell Putin will ever agree on to end this invasion?

Putin has already shot his load, as it were. Making a grand pronouncement that Ukraine wasn't even a real country and that he was going to make them all happy Russians again, only to have nearly every Ukrainian grab a rifle and fight back. Even grandmothers were tossing sunflower seeds at Russian troops cursing that their bodies will be fertilizer for the flowers that will bloom. 

Putin has already flexed his nation's military might, only to face the possibility that he's going to have to retreat, never a good look for a bullying autocrat. Or worse, double down on the troops and weaponry (that he may not have) and try to overwhelm Ukrainian resistance by sheer numbers, risking the growing anti-war sentiment of the citizenry at home.

Putin called for this invasion in spite of U.S. President Biden's increased warnings of massive backlash in the form of sanctions and financial lockdowns. He tried to brush off such concerns claiming Russia would endure it, but there are serious signs he underestimated the resolve of most major financial nations as both the U.S. and the EU are closing off nearly every revenue stream Russia needs to survive. Shutting down SWIFT is a legitimately painful cutoff. Germany's willingness to cut off their reliance on Russian natural gas has to be a serious blow.

And in terms of foreign relations, Putin's aggressiveness only worked to make the European nations not yet in NATO - like Finland and Sweden, both of them along Russia's northern borders - openly call for debate to join NATO. Threats of retaliation from Russia's foreign minister are falling on deaf ears. Putin's plan to break up the one European alliance in opposition to him has failed.

In fact, it's a bit surprising how NATO is still here, or that the United States is still a member. One of the great fears of donald trump's reign as President Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice) was how he seemed so close to pulling the U.S. out of NATO in order to appease his idol/boss/blackmailer Putin. It was something that could well have happened in 2018 or 2019, just as trump was threatening to cut off all military aid to Ukraine unless they helped him sabotage Biden's presidential hopes (which led to trump's first Impeachment). Something stopped trump from pulling the plug, and until more details - and more behind-the-scenes memoirs get published - we're only left to speculate.

But that failure by trump - gee, another botched job by him, go figure - weakened Putin when it mattered most, because now NATO is revitalized and focused on its original objective of providing a military bulwark against Soviet Russian aggression against the rest of Europe.

Now that I've said all that, I need to go back to my original question: Just what the hell is Putin's endgame here?

If he's bartering for peace, in order to end the economic hits that Russia's taking now and to save whatever's left of an invading force getting bogged down into a mismanaged quagmire, Putin's got a weak hand to play with.

Ukraine is not going to trade away the one card they've got in all this: Their threat/promise to join NATO and/or the EU market. Whatever fears Russia/Putin has about that, it's the one thing Ukraine can't abandon lest they risk Russia pulling this invasion crap ten or twenty years from now. Don't forget, Ukraine gave up the nuclear weapons left to them when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, with the promise that Russia would never invade, never pull the bullshit that Putin so obviously did this month. Putin cannot offer anything else for that security again, no other promise or guarantee to prevent invasion the way membership with NATO could guarantee. And yet, it's going to be the one thing Putin wants - No NATO for you! - to take away from this no matter what. Like I said earlier, this is a paradox that can't be resolved through promises he'll easily break.

There's little Putin can offer to the rest of the world, either. He's on record breaking treaties and agreements to pull off this invasion, and anything he has to offer to relieve the economic stranglehold can't be taken at face value or with simple platitudes. For these sanctions to get lifted, he's going to have to sacrifice more than a pound of flesh. We're talking demilitarization along the Ukrainian border with UN peacekeepers put in place to make sure Putin won't pull this stunt again. We're talking reform efforts to purge the oligarchs feeding off the Russian economy and creating global corruption abroad, and likely weaken Putin's power base. We're talking election reforms to guarantee free and open elections that Putin can't steal, which he'll definitely fight to save his own unpopular ass.

Putin's reputation abroad getting shredded is one thing, but it's his position at home that's going to suffer if he's forced to change his narrative and retreat without victory. "Strong Men" authoritarians like himself can never afford to appear weak or beaten: Losing in neighboring Ukraine, with the whole world watching and his own Russian people paying attention, is a sign of weakness that tends to be fatal. The army he led into disaster is likely going to question his further leadership. The politicians he thought were toadying Yes Men are going to dread being blamed for HIS disaster and sacrificed to clear room for more 'competent' Yes Men (if any can be found by now). The citizenry he's tried to bully into acquiescence is going to start mocking him from the shadows if not from the middle of the streets (anti-war marches are already happening in Russia).

In that situation, Putin's not likely to barter with Ukraine or the West in any good faith, meaning the odds of a peaceful end to his invasion are close to nil. A good sign that Putin's not going to negotiate well is how he's already called up his nuclear deployment forces - five days in! - as a sign of how panicked he is this thing isn't going his way.

That Putin is already reaching for the Nuclear Option as a means of forcing the world to cower to him in spite of his failures in Ukraine is both horrifying and placating. Yes, it's scary that we're back to the brinkmanship game of Mutually Assured Destruction. But even Putin - even his military and political advisors who would have to be a buffer in this situation - has to realize that if he goes nuclear that's it, GAME OVER for everyone including themselves, that even if they survive they will end up ruling over a world of radioactive ash.

It's a trump card (sorry, pun intended) that Putin really can't call on. It's at best the one thing he's got going for him that would ensure he gets a safe flight out of Russia after the country rises up against his corrupt weak ass.

That's the only sane way Putin's war is going to end.