Oleksandr Sukhobrus
Putin’s behavior in his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began exactly four years ago – on February 24, 2022, seems irrational and resembles an obsession. Having launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine and suffered an initial setback, Putin has not abandoned a war that is causing enormous human losses, destroys the Russian economy and isolates Russia on the international scene.
For Russia, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine started in 2022 brought numerous material and reputational losses: humiliating defeats for the Russian army and navy in the first phase of the war, huge human losses – already exceeding 1.2 million casualties; the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, Ukrainians’ hatred of Russia for centuries, Prigozhin’s mutiny, which demonstrated the fragile system Putin had created, in which the head of a private military company staffed by pardoned convicts could revolt and take cities without a fight; loss of the Assad regime in Syria; loss of ground in Transcaucasia, a region traditionally under strong Russian influence for centuries; humiliating strikes on Russia’s strategic bombers and oil refineries deep in Russia; humiliating kidnapping of one of its greatest allies, Nicolás Maduro; and seizure of tankers belonging to the shadow fleet flying the Russian flag. All these failures, and especially the inability to achieve a decisive victory in Ukraine, have seriously undermined Russia’s influence on the international stage. Until February 24, 2022, countries in the Global South perceived Russia as a country capable to impose its will to other countries and as a real counterweight to the United States. After over four years of war, Russia has proven itself not incapable of defeating Ukraine, a country whose military few took seriously before Russia’s invasion.
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