Putin seems to have bitten off more than he can chew. It was no surprise that Russia launched the expected invasion on Thursday 24 February, a date which will live in infamy - if I can borrow Roosevelt’s phrase from 1941. Putin’s pre-recorded address where he promised “the greatest consequences in history“ to anyone who “interfered” with his plans made him sound slightly deranged and worrying. However, with progress coming very slowly and fierce resistance from Ukrainian forces, it is quite obvious that after two days there is zero chance he will be able to hold Ukraine permanently.
It has all come as a bit of a surprise to the Kremlin. No great conurbations are yet under Russian control and as the invaders get closer to city centres the resistance is likely to get even stronger.
A lot of civilians are now armed and seem determined to give them a hard time. Molotov cocktails are being prepared by scientists at one university apparently. Plus, as supply lines get longer, they become more vulnerable to attack.
The Russian Ministry of Health has put out a call for medical staff to prepare to relocate as if anticipating a massive medical emergency, ordering regional health organisations to immediately identify medical staff ready to move somewher. It is a sign the casualties are higher than they ever thought.
The problem for the defenders is that the harder they make it for Russia, the more likely they will use heavier and more lethal weapons and the death toll will rise. Someone said it is now a war of necessity for Putin - he has to win at all costs. But this was always true, in my opinion.
Also, surprisingly there are lots of protests in cities across Russia and elsewhere. An academic at Toronto university suggested protesters were out in 53 Russian cities, open letters have been circulated signed by municipal officials and academics and even the daughter of Putin’s spokesman has tweeted in opposition.
It is starting to look like being a far harder - and therefore costlier in lives and money and time - job than Putin and his generals ever anticipated. There is widespread condemnation.
There is now growing political support in Finland and Sweden to join NATO even as Russia warns of political and military consequences if they do. I think this is the best opportunity they will ever have. There is a lot of justification to do it and the Russian army will be bogged down for years. They simply cannot afford to open two fronts. It would be a surprise to me if both countries are not member sif NATO in some capacity by the year end.
Sergei Lavrov, Putin’s foreign minister, gave a press conference where he made the absolutely bizarre claim that, “The Russian operation is being carried out to free Ukrainians from oppression so they can determine their own future"
Lavrov just explained why Russia had to start a war with Ukraine and it's pure Orwell: "The Russian operation is being carried out to free Ukrainians from oppression so they can determine their own future". pic.twitter.com/ktNi6lbhpW
— Tadeusz Giczan 🇺🇦 (@TadeuszGiczan) February 25, 2022
If and when Ukraine’s main centres are pacified, expect a permanent and bloody guerrilla war with weapons supplied by the west. I am not convinced Putin realises just how many troops he will need to secure Ukraine’s borders, to hold on to the levers of power and keep the economy going.
A military expert has confirmed the 190,000 troops, many of them support staff like cooks and quartermasters, is nowhere near enough to occupy the largest country in Europe permanently against an unwilling populace.
Putin may have fallen for the idea of the Ukrainian population welcoming Russian forces, rising up and rebelling against their own government. It’s pretty clear that isn’t going to happen as this video of a Ukrainian woman confronting a Russian soldier shows:
Ukrainian woman confronts Russian soldiers in Henychesk, Kherson region. Asks them why they came to our land and urges to put sunflower seeds in their pockets [so that flowers would grow when they die on the Ukrainian land] pic.twitter.com/ztTx2qK7kB
— UkraineWorld (@ukraine_world) February 24, 2022
Mark Austin, formerly at ITV but now at Sky News has been reporting from Kyiv and has been for a few days so I assume he has got a sense of the situation. He tweeted:
The more I watch this unfold here, the more I think this will turn out catastrophically for Putin #Ukraine
— Mark Austin (@markaustintv) February 25, 2022
I must say I agree with this. It looks like a spectacular mistake by Putin. The west will begin to wean itself off Russian gas and oil, Russian is becoming an isolated pariah state, the economy is going to be slowly wrecked and his own future must increasingly be in doubt.
Brexit
I’m afraid Ukraine has tended to put Brexit into perspective although the connections between Putin, Russia and the Conservative party become clearer and more worrying by the day. And people’s suspicion that Russia was involved in the referendum have not been allayed. Brexit has weakened European unity and made agreeing sanctions and an overall response more difficult.
However, Brexit continues to … I was going to say rumble along but it isn’t even doing that. Rees-Mogg is reduced to asking readers of The Sun for their ideas and now IDS is quoted in The Telegraph saying that the government has done nothing (he says sweet FA, so a bit stronger) with the report produced by the Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform which he chaired.
IDS says, “The Government has done absolutely sweet FA about this since we delivered the report to them. They should have been getting on with it now, and they still haven’t done a single element of deregulation since I produced the report.”
He fears that the Government is running out of time, more than two years on from the election and since the UK officially left the EU.
“If you want me to write the epitaph to this Government, it is full of wishful hope, but not of delivery,” as he warned that inexperienced ministers are too often “captured by civil servants” instead of driving the agenda. As usual it's everyone else's fault.
“There is a lot to do and they think they have a lot of time to do it in, but they don’t. If we don’t get this done in the next nine months, most of this stuff, it is never going to get done, because we will be into the pre-run to an election. At that stage, what are you going to show?”
I have read the TIGRR report and he suggests a lot of future regulatory changes but I am sure behind the scenes those likely to be affected are indicating they simply won't work.
It seems as if none of them have actually come up with any reason for Brexit at all. Professor Chris Grey says they are like dogs chasing a car. I think he's right. The rhetoric has come up against reality.
