Putin Is Losing Already Today

His strategy is flawed.

Mission impossible.

Putin cannot win a war against the Ukrainians. Not because of lack of resources - because of the very goal he has set for himself: to eliminate Ukrainians as a separate nation. Some of them to be physically destroyed, others to be forced to give up their own identity for the sake of survival. This goal is evident from his statements and from his actions. And this is an unrealized strategy.

Factually Putin is trying to continue the mission of one of his inspirations - Stalin. The latter also clearly realized that the existence of Ukrainians as a nation was a threat to the empire. But even Stalin failed to achieve this goal, despite much more favorable conditions: the majority of Ukrainians were already within his state, capable of mass terror. Most, but not all. Some remained beyond his reach. And the attempt to "finish the job" in the territories annexed after 1939 was met with active, long-lasting and well-organized resistance. It was suppressed - but at the cost of exhaustion, which undermined the empire. It began to crack immediately after Stalin's death. Eventually, the memory of that resistance became a factor in its collapse.

Putin doesn't even have that capability. He does not control the territory where the majority of Ukrainians live. Therefore, he is able to realize his strategy only on occupied lands - and he does it. It is terrible and painful for us, but it is not enough for him.

What is more, the very threat of annihilation mobilizes the majority of Ukrainians, awakens some of those who remained indifferent to their identity. It gives strength, consolidates society and makes the realization of the plan even less likely. This threat also destroys the soft power tools that Russia successfully used for years before the war began in 2014 to Russify.

That is why Putin is already losing today.

And he will lose definitively precisely because his strategy is flawed, built on an unrealistic goal. And such strategies always lead to defeat. Maybe not as quickly as we would like. But inevitably. And no change in tactics (of which there are few, really) will change that. So we hold on, invest in the common cause of victory - and we will wait for the collapse of the empire.

Vladimir Vyatrovich, Facebook

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