There is much speculation these days as to why Putin is pouring new rocket terror into Ukraine. In any case, the revenge theory falls short. There are much more complex reasons why Putin is now playing the “strong man”.
Is Putin taking cold revenge by firing Russia’s missiles at cities across Ukraine? This is said to be to retaliate by destroying Ukrainian infrastructure and deterring further attacks by Ukraine after Ukraine is said to be behind the Kerch Bridge attack.
That may be true in part because the Russian president was furious at his intelligence agencies’ failure to protect the Kerch Bridge. But his calculus is colder. And it’s only half related to Ukraine.
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The other half revolves around maintaining one’s position of power in the Kremlin. Because the longer the war lasts, the more obviously it is unsuccessful for Russia, the more Russia’s military overconfidence becomes visible to the whole world and the more severe the sanctions cut into the Russian economy, the narrower is Putin’s room for manoeuvre.
After Russia’s armed forces proved incapable of implementing the maximum plan – the speedy capture of Kiev – or at least the minimum plan – the speedy occupation of Donbass – a kind of stalemate on the battlefield existed for a few weeks. Russia’s steamroller, thought by many to be slowly but steadily advancing, was crushed in an instant by Ukraine’s counteroffensive, and Ukrainian forces managed to reclaim large areas in both the north-east and south-east of the country.
The military situation is now such that it is more likely that Russia is fearing a steady advance by Ukraine to recapture its territory. Russian troops fled the danger of being surrounded several times. Ukraine determined the processes.
With the sham annexation of the four administrative districts, Putin wanted to snatch this initiative away from Ukraine so that he can no longer react alone, but can set the pace of events again. This only succeeded formally by completing a process that created an illusory world, namely that Russia now had a new western border.
To this day, this is not even clear on paper – Russia’s government does not yet know exactly where the border with Ukraine should run – and in reality it is a blank fake. Apart from North Korea, it is not accepted by anyone, not by the post-Soviet states of Central Asia, which are increasingly distancing themselves from Russia, or other states that have not joined the sanctions. His plan fell apart.
Prof. Dr. Thomas Jäger has held the Chair for International Politics and Foreign Policy at the University of Cologne since 1999. His research focuses on international relations and American and German foreign policy.
At the same time, President Putin had announced partial mobilization, which is intended to strengthen Russian combat effectiveness in the war. This attempt to regain the political initiative also failed. Firstly, because more than 700,000 Russians immediately left the country to evade military service. On the other hand, because the mobilization was chaotic.
Citizens were drafted out of turn, and the new recruits were largely left without equipment. Attacks against the military offices were recorded throughout the country. However, they did not trigger any public protests that could have been dangerous for Putin.
Nevertheless, this remained his concern, because the mobilization unmasked Putin’s propaganda lie about the casualty-poor special military operation. It was useless and the power-hungry candidates from the Russian leadership immediately used this to criticize the conduct of the war. Not the president, of course, but the secretary of defense and generals. But what was meant was Putin. He was one resignation away from being responsible for the internal damage.
That prompted Putin to immediately promote one of them, Chechen Ramzan Kadyrov, to colonel-general, and days later to prove his own capacity for ruthless, brutal action.
The attack on the Kerch Bridge was the reason for this, but not the reason. The reason was the weakening of Putin internally: the perforation of previous propaganda, military failures, political protests (if only by fleeing), power rivalries in the leadership and the apparent decline of the Russian economy. In this situation, Putin thought he had to play the “strong man”.
However, the missile attacks on Ukrainian cities pursue several goals at the same time.
Although it is by no means certain that Ukraine was behind the attack on the Kerch Bridge. She didn’t admit it, even if her joy was exploited in the parallel information war. And the Russian government has not produced any evidence that Putin has always talked about.
As far as can be judged at the moment, Putin has only achieved his most important goal. His critics have briefly fallen silent and are once again praising the president, making him feel safe in office. But he missed all other goals and paradoxically worsened the situation for Russia.
Ukraine’s will to resist is clear. Support with military equipment – at least as far as air defense is concerned – is being increased. Over half of the Russian missiles were intercepted this time. Next time – Putin has already announced this – there will be more who will not reach their goal.
And then Russia is also increasingly running out of military equipment in this area. Replenishment missing. Finally, the attacks on the Ukrainian cities were critically commented on by important states – India in the lead. They lead Russia further into international isolation and thus more into economic decline.
The Russian President is currently playing for time. When hundreds of thousands of new recruits are fielded, the military situation is said to change. If hundreds of infrastructure facilities in Ukraine are destroyed, the pressure on the government will increase and the will to resist will break. As the cost of support rises in the West, political protests are expected to intensify and intimidate governments there.
Russia seeks to destabilize all other European states in order to assume its imperialist role of dominating Europe. Under the current conditions, Putin will not be able to implement this plan. As soon as he sees his position of power in the Kremlin in jeopardy, he will have to rearrange his priorities. With the sham annexation of the Ukrainian territories, however, he has blocked a conceivable way out of this complicated situation.
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