War in Ukraine: Putin’s Four Fundamental Mistakes

In 1904 Nicholas II was convinced that he could beat Japan “flat seam” of Emperor Meiji. The Tsar had no idea that he would have to admit defeat the following year, paying for the shortcomings of his strategists, those of his troops and the lack of knowledge of his adversary and of the Far Eastern theater of operations. This lesson of history, Vladimir Poutine preferred to forget it. Isolated in his palaces, intoxicated by his own propaganda, blinded by his refusal of counter-powers, the head of the Kremlin convinced himself that Ukraine could not resist him. And that success would not escape him, as the last Romanov thought in his time.

After all, his army has racked up successes in Syria. And the clandestine involvement of its elite forces in the Donbass in 2014 and 2015 had forced the power of kyiv to painful concessions. Added to this is the vassalization, over the past two years, of the Belarus of Alexander Lukashenko, forced to call on him for help to put down a popular protest on an unprecedented scale. Filled with hubris, the former KGB agent did not see that the young Ukrainian democracy was pursuing its emancipation from Moscow at all costs, which began with the end of the USSR. Nor that the Western democracies, which he despises so much, would unite against him.

• 1st mistake: the denial of Ukraine

For the head of the Kremlin, this country is an artificial construction, without historical foundation. According to him, there can be no democratic Ukraine, independent of Russia. “We are one people,” he asserted last summer in his highly questionable essay on “the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” He thus persuaded himself that his soldiers would be welcomed as liberators, in particular by the Russian speakers of the East. The reality turned out to be quite different. “Ukrainian national identity is very real and has been strengthened a lot since the Russian aggression of 2014, points out historian Galia Ackerman. Putin did not anticipate that the Ukrainians were ready to fight heroically.”

Nor did he anticipate their sacred union around their president Volodymyr Zelensky. The ex-comedian, described as a “drug addict” and a “neo-Nazi” by Moscow, has become the symbol of the democratic aspirations of an entire people, and of its resistance to the Russian invader. “Putin made the mistake of seeing him as a clown, but he revealed himself, like historical figures, in times of crisis”, summarizes Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier, associate researcher at the Thomas-More Institute.

• 2nd error: underestimated resistance

Putin was convinced that the Ukrainian army would reflect the “failed state” it defends. He did not see that she had prepared for an invasion, as her attempt to take Hostomel airport, northwest of Kyiv, showed. Hotly contested by the Ukrainian forces, its track was rendered unusable by dint of fierce fighting, causing the Russians to lose a precious asset. A month later, unable to encircle the Ukrainian capital, the Russian general staff announced that it was reviewing its plans to focus on “liberating Donbass”.

Because the Russian army, whose capabilities Putin overestimated, is suffering heavy losses. Between 7,000 and 15,000 of its soldiers would have been killed in a month of conflict, according to NATO. A figure which, in its high range, is similar to that of Soviet deaths in Afghanistan… in ten years of war. “The situation has nothing to do with the Russian-Ukrainian conflict of 2014, when Putin and his generals witnessed a rapid collapse of the Ukrainian army, recalls Tatiana Kastoueva-Jean, director of the Russia center at the Institute. French for international relations. Today she is motivated, better equipped and has been able to benefit from training by Western instructors.”

• 3rd error: the failed bet of a disunited West

Vladimir Putin’s bet? That a European Union reluctant to assert itself as a power, dependent on Russian gas and worried about the nuclear threat agitated by Moscow, dares not stand up to it – any more than the United States, whose relationship with the Old Continent also withered away during the Trump years. With the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and an aging Joe Biden, who will celebrate his 80th birthday this fall, he convinced himself that he had a clear field.

Corn the head of the Kremlin has above all succeeded in consolidating the Atlantic Alliance in a spectacular manner, like the European family, attracting economic sanctions as massive as they are formidable. “Putin clearly underestimated the reaction of the democratic camp and its capacity for unity, coherence and a strong response, explains Mathieu Boulègue, researcher at Chatham House. Russia started from the principle that the sanctions would be a fairly painless punishment , without imagining that they could turn into a real tool of coercion.” At the same time, Western arms deliveries to Ukraine are not slowing down, and are increasing the human cost of its invasion every day.

• 4th error: believing that democracies are weak

It is Putin’s original fault, inspired by the thought of Ivan Ilyne, a conservative Russian philosopher from the beginning of the 20th century whom he presents as his bedside author. “He is convinced of the weakness of formal democracies, based on law, as Ilyne calls them, argues Michel Eltchaninoff, author of Inside the mind of Vladimir Putin (South Acts). He promotes another model, which I call the ‘democracy of acclamation’, based on the enthusiasm felt by the people in the face of the strength and tenacity of a guide, systematically re-elected, and who proposes a great project civilizational.”

At the head of Russia since 1999, Putin looks with contempt on these Western regimes where alternation is required, with frequent changes of government. “But by betting on the stability of his reign, he imposed a totally immobile, repressive regime, which prevents the good development of the country”, underlines Galia Ackermann. Choices that reinforced his blindness and led to war in Ukraine. A tragedy that the Russians will sooner or later pay for.