Russia poised to win the war with Ukraine. But will Putin come out on top?

With the prospect of a victory in the Ukraine war looking assured, Russian President Vladimir Putin has earned his place in history. After three years of scrappy fighting, Russian troops, shrugging off occasional reverses, have effectively checkmated their tenacious Ukrainian opponents, bolstered as they were by generous Western assistance.

In the process, team Putin, relying mainly on a carefully calibrated aggression against Ukraine, has handed the mighty US-NATO alliance a major military setback reminiscent of the Western retreat from Vietnam in 1975. Far more than a Russian victory, its failure to protect Ukraine has led to a globally significant political embarrassment for the West. The unexpected military reverse has already led to a virtual rift between the US and its European allies.

The successful Russian military campaign, essentially more anti-West than anti-Ukrainian, is an achievement that no other world leader in recent memory had dared to execute. Ironically, even as Putin’s popularity ratings are poised to go up several notches amid the global South countries, the credibility of one Western leader, US President Mr Donald Trump, will also rise. The reason: unlike other prejudiced, short-sighted hidebound ‘leaders’ in Europe, he had never badmouthed Putin or his leadership, ever.

How the war precipitated 

For even a rough assessment of what Russia has achieved under Putin, a brief account of contemporary developments is necessary.

With Russia enjoying built-in advantages of fighting from home, its troops outnumbering Ukrainians as well dominating their enemy in terms of light and heavy weaponry, Ukraine was foredoomed even before the first shots were fired. Instead of taking on the massive Russian war machine, Ukraine would have been better off in working out a settlement with Moscow. It could have saved its territory and avoided a disastrous defeat, by simply announcing a measure of autonomy for its 30% Russian-speaking population in Lugansk and Donbass.

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This would have been possible, as Putin repeatedly asserted if only Ukrainians, keen to join the EU had agreed to the provisions of the Minsk agreements drawn up in 2014 and also 2015. These agreements were announced after prolonged discussions involving the EU, Russia and Ukraine. Russia had not opposed Ukraine’s joining the EU. All it had sought was a guarantee that it would not join the NATO —a military alliance that ominously enough continued to expand Eastwards, belying earlier Western commitments. Moscow’s request went unanswered.

It is now common knowledge that in their keenness to join the EU after the violently engineered West-sponsored Maidan square revolution (2013-14), pro-West Ukraine leaders had assured their western backers that all vestiges of the centuries-old historical ties with Russia would be wiped out systematically. In their zeal to rewrite Ukrainian history, they began a systematic anti-Russian campaign targeting about 30% of the population. The use of Russian language, its cultural heritage and religious practices, began to be suppressed. Worse, sporadic physical attacks against Russians became common.

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Repeated protests by Putin and other Russian leaders against such trends. were ignored. As for the Minsk accord, both France and Germany encouraged Ukraine not to take Russian protests too seriously.

As former Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, and senior French leaders later admitted, they had advised Ukraine ‘to play for time while appearing to deal with Russian protests’. Meantime, the West would supply heavy weaponry to Ukraine to prepare for an eventual battle against Russia.

Such an admission, coming especially from Merkel, with whom Putin had a special relationship, shocked Moscow to the core. Russia naturally alleged this to be yet another instance of patently perfidious Western behaviour.

The Russian prestige

In the light of later events, this episode acquires special significance. It shows up a major Western miscalculation — European leaders had failed to appreciate that Vladimir Putin, a deeply nationalist leader determined to restore Russian prestige, was not like his weaker, physically unfit predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. They overlooked Putin’s serious moves within Russia to strengthen its energy sector, rev up its defence production, research for advanced weapons and increase food production and exports.

Further, it needs to be noted that more than a year ago, when according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, V Zalensky and Russian leaders were only hours away from announcing jointly the end of the conflict following widespread talks, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson sabotaged the proceedings, personally visiting Ukraine to overrule Kiev-based peace-brokers. As analysts subsequently explained, Russians had not yet gone all out against Ukraine at that stage and Kiev was offered far more generous terms for a settlement, compared to what it can expect to get from Putin now.

From this standpoint, it seems authorities in Kiev actually snatched defeat from the jaws of a potential diplomatic victory that would have saved Ukraine much blood sweat and tears. The question that now arises is, what is the significance of the military setback the West has suffered.

For starters, as the guns go silent in Ukraine, there would be a sigh of relief all over the world. Ever since the US-led West launched its dangerous ‘regime change’ policy in the nineties, targeting countries it considered ‘unfriendly’, prolonged unrest, tensions, massive destruction of lives and property, mass migration and pauperization of people, became common place.

The gruesome nightmare began since 1999-2000, marked by the reckless bombing of Iraq, Yugoslavia (the country no longer exists), Afghanistan (twice), Iraq again, Libya, Syria the list of smaller countries virtually destroyed by essentially one-sided wars, seemed to get ever longer. And the rationale for Western ‘interventions’ was always the same; the targeted regimes were undemocratic, headed by villainous leaders who exploited common people and curtailed basic human rights.

In most cases, such unilateral Western ‘action’ was taken without any reference to the UN, which meant the bombings on civilians were war crimes. But in a West-dominated ‘unipolar’ world, with a weakened Russia struggling to survive, who would dare raise a fist in protest? The mayhem lasted from the nineties to the turmoil engulfing Syria, nearer present times.

It is in this context that one has to assess the role of Putin — the leader.

It is not advisable to exaggerate the importance of individuals in history, but in this instance one cannot avoid mentioning the rise of Putin as the leader of a resurgent Russia that finally challenged the West-imposed new world order, where might was right.

The Putin legacy

However, the verdict on Putin is essentially a mixture of positives and negatives.

It needs stressing that to succeed or even survive in Russian politics, a political leader needs to develop special attributes that would never be appreciated in non-Marxist regimes. Russian leaders find nothing shocking in ruthlessly jailing or even ‘eliminating’ their former friends or comrades, if the need arises. The high ethical standards one associates with the Gandhian style of politics or the Marquess of Queensberry rules in present day political discourse simply do not apply in the cutthroat world of Russian politics.

Power and survival are the only things that count. Putin for all his qualities as a successful ruler, is every bit as ruthless and distrustful of even his close associates — not that Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin were vastly different. These leaders, revered by their countrymen as historical, ‘winners’ would go to any lengths — even approving genocides — in the name of serving their national interests’. As for the verdict of history, only time can tell the story.

It is too early to pronounce decisively on the overall performance of Vladimir Putin as a politician. At home, his policies have been oppressive: journalists have been jailed, media has been strictly controlled, troublesome minorities have been mercilessly dealt with (ask the Chechens). Opponents or dissenters, actual or potential, have been cut to size — Khodorkovsky, Navalny, the Skripal killings, Yevgeny Prigozhin — the catalogue is long and scary, especially for Russian citizens. To be fair, Khodorkovski’s role as a traitor to Russia cannot be denied.

But Putin will remain ever popular among Russians because he has effectively restored Russia’s lost prestige and the pride of Russian Slavs as a race to be reckoned with. Further, he along with team members Lavrov, Medvedev and Shoigu, not to mention financial authorities running Russia’s central bank, have achieved the impossible — they have made a mockery of the over 12,000 or so ‘Western economic sanctions’ slapped on the country by the united West.

And now, a new world order, where the global South is beginning to play its assigned role, is emerging. For such a major transition worldwide, the resurgence of Russia, the stupendous progress of China and the impressive achievements seen in India have been significant as contributory factors. And among today’s movers and shakers in international politics, Vladimir Putin certainly stands out.