Putin has Failed to Define What a Russian Victory in Ukraine would Be, Golts Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 4 – Vladimir Putin has failed to define what a victory in Ukraine would look like, Aleksandr Golts says. He has said he wants to “de-Nazify” and disarm Ukraine, something that would require regime change which in turn would require either the surrender or flight of the Ukrainian government or Russia’s capture of Kyiv.

            The government of Volodmyr Zelensky shows no sign of surrender or flight, the independent Russian military analyst points out; and seizing Kyiv after what would inevitably involve military hostilities in an urban environment is “the worst nightmare for any commander.” No one knows quite how to do it (theins.ru/opinions/golts/249073).

            According to military doctrine, Golts continues, “the army is supposed to go around cities and destroy enemy troops; but no one knows how to take a city.” That may be one reason Russian commanders have not moved more quickly in the direction of Kyiv, apparently hoping that the Ukrainian defenders will somehow “waver, flee, or surrender.”

            But if Russian forces move all the way through Ukraine but do not take the capital or force the capitulation or flight of the Ukrainian government, that advance “will not mean a change in regime.”  And without that, there won’t be any Putin victory, however much his propagandists will claim otherwise.

            Golts makes five other important points. First, he says, the Putin regime’s insistence that there is no war in Ukraine is “a bureaucratic trick” to allow Moscow not to report casualties. In wartime, it is required to do so; in peacetime, all such losses are “classified.”

            Second, there is “a huge shortage of reliable information,” and almost all statements issued by Russian officials at all levels should be treated with skepticism. Third, prospects for talks are anything but good not only because the two sides are still engaged in active combat but want diametrically opposed things.

             Fourth, Putin is compensating combat victims and their families far more generously in the past but not so much out of humanitarian concerns than the desire to block criticism. And fifth, Putin’s domestic policies during the war have been one improvisation after another rather than reflecting a serious plan.

            The Kremlin leader has not declared martial law even though he is acting in many ways as if he had. The reasons for his unwillingness to do so is that then it would require him to admit there is a war and because “martial law imposes duties not only on citizens but on the powers that be, and these duties are something the powers would like to avoid.”