Putin is escalating because he’s losing the war in Ukraine

The war in Ukraine has changed so radically within its seventh month as to be virtually unrecognisable as the same conflict that was waged during the first six. The Ukrainian counter-offensive in Kharkiv took the Russians completely by surprise. When the Ukrainians, normally totally tight-lipped on all security matters, spent weeks talking about the coming offensive in Kherson, the Russians should have sensed something was wrong.

Instead, they drained other front-line positions of troops to reinforce Kherson, leaving the Kharkiv Oblast so weakly defended that its outnumbered forces broke and fled before the Ukrainian onslaught. But this much applauded ruse was not entirely a deception. The Ukrainian counter-offensive in Kherson, though not so heavy as in Kharkiv, is a genuine attack, advancing very slowly to squeeze the Russian army.

There are 20,000 Russian troops in the Kherson Oblast, with a river at their backs and no prospect of adequate supplies as winter draws near, since the bridges have been destroyed. There is still the possibility for soldiers to escape east, but not with their tanks, artillery or equipment, if the situation becomes untenable. Talk of a mini-Stalingrad by mid-winter is not far-fetched.

Further north, in defiance of military science, the Russians are robotically continuing their snail-pace offensive towards Bakhmut, in an effort eventually to take Sloviansk and Kramatorsk: recently they occupied a village, after five weeks’ effort. This allows Moscow’s propagandists to proclaim a “victory” and a continuing advance. For the Ukrainians it is a fleabite and if the Russian forces on the west bank of the Dnipro collapse, this front will be swept away with the rest. 

The Ukrainians, after their epic charge through Kharkiv Oblast, recognise that their northern offensive must now necessarily slow. Heavy artillery has to be brought forward, supplies transported to advanced units and new lines of communication established. But that does not mean the counter-offensive has halted. On the contrary, the Ukrainians have now advanced to the east bank of the Oskil river.

That was inevitable, once they took Kupiansk, since the Oskil flows through the city. However, it could render futile the Russians’ digging defence lines facing the river, if they can be rolled up by an attack from the north. Meantime, Lyman is surrounded on three sides by Ukrainian forces. If it falls, in the wake of Kupiansk, it will deprive Russia of rail transportation. The Russian army has moved on rails since the reign of Tsar Alexander III: without access to train transportation it would be crippled.

So long has the myth of Russian military invincibility persisted – a myth born in 1812 and reinforced in 1945 – that people forget the catastrophic experience of the Russian army in the First World War. The mauling of the elite 1^st Guards Tank Army in the Kharkiv offensive obscured the fact that it had effectively been destroyed months ago, in an earlier battle, and was a husk of its former self.

The Ukrainians have taken Bilohorivka, which means they are now fighting in Luhansk Oblast, biting into the core of Russian occupied territory. They are poised to recapture Lysychansk and Severodonetsk, though they are guarded about their objectives and progress. They no longer enjoy the numerical superiority that enabled them to storm across Kharkiv. They have suffered heavy casualties and need to conserve the lives of their soldiers – which points to the need for the West to send more heavy firepower without delay.

That said, the morale of the Russian army is at an all-time low, that of the Ukrainians at an all-time high. There is no reason why, faced with a determined and well-armed Ukrainian assault, Russian troops in any part of the occupied territory should not imitate their comrades in Kharkiv and simply run for their lives. Most of them have no belief in the war and no faith in their commanders. It is likely the conviction of eventual defeat is eroding their fighting spirit.

Putin had no option but to resort to mobilisation. He prepared the ground for that by bringing forward the so-called referenda in the puppet Ukrainian republics. If they “voted” for union with Russia, that would make any Ukrainian offensive in the Donbas an attack on Russian territory, legally justifying mobilisation. 

Putin has been moving towards imposing martial law in Russia, a measure finally discrediting the myth of a “special military operation” and confronting Russians with wartime conditions. In his broadcast today, postponed from Tuesday, he announced the partial mobilisation of 300,000 reservists, though he avoided including students, the constituency most likely to respond with a Vietnam War-style “Hell no, we won’t go!” refusenik stance.

Such measures will be massively unpopular in Russia, further threatening Putin’s hold on power. Nor will they necessarily increase his military capability: driving raw conscripts into the Ukrainian meat grinder could increase the casualty rate to a level that would increase unrest at home and even provoke mutiny in the undisciplined Russian army.

For Putin, it is all a humiliation. The ultra-nationalists in Russia are mocking him and his generals; at the recent SCO summit he was refused military assistance by China and kept waiting by the president of Kyrgizstan. Even India was cool in its interchange with the Russian leader. US Secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, is tentatively mediating between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in Central Asia, which Putin aspired to make a Russian sphere of influence. Similarly, his aim of halting NATO enlargement has driven Sweden and Finland into the Alliance.

Ramzan Kadirov, the Chechen leader, is withdrawing from the Ukraine war and uttering mutinous criticisms. The Chechens have a grudge against Russia for its ruthless suppression of them between 1999 and 2009. States within the Russian Federation are looking increasingly disaffected.

Russia’s economy is in tatters, with household incomes shrinking since 2014. But, in defeat, Putin can inflict much destruction by taking out power plants and water supplies, condemning Ukrainians to a dark, unheated winter, with water provision disrupted. Worse still, he could destroy a nuclear power station and irradiate Europe. Already, the Russians have been firing missiles in close proximity to nuclear reactors in an insanely reckless way; no civilised nation would indulge in such irresponsible behaviour.

If the United Nations has any use at all, it must insist on its peacekeeping troops guarding all nuclear sites on Ukrainian soil, with localised no-fly zones and effective missile systems to defend from air attacks. Russia would become a global pariah if it persisted in nuclear brinkmanship: even Xi Jinping would strongly condemn such conduct. For Britain, charged by Boris Johnson in his departing message with going nuclear, this should give cause for reflection. A nuclear power station is a euphemism for a nuclear bomb: creating such facilities across the country turns even a minor enemy, such as a terrorist group, into a nuclear power, if it attacks reactors with conventional weapons.

As for Ukraine, if it has the resolve to withstand the hardships a Putin scorched earth policy might inflict, its army clearly has the upper hand. It must continue to operate cleverly, realistically, deploying its limited resources to optimum effect, in which case there is a serious prospect of Putin’s shambolic army breaking. For the West, our responsibility is to give all possible military aid to Ukraine, at an accelerated rate, to help secure victory against the Russian aggressor.

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