The victory day is approaching, and Russia seems all ears to the sounds of explosions and precis-artillery shots, for what could be a better commemoration for its victory over Nazi Germany (once upon a time) than a barrage of attacks that would revise and re-establish its military prowess in the world. A truce, that supposedly should take place on the 9th of this month? I doubt if it’s only a mockery of Western notions of power and victory, a charade of all talk and no actions, for which the West, especially the US, is known for. Only if the truth could be more blunter. The Russian army is, literally, struggling. Conscriptions are on the rise and with soldiers being taken into the game without prior appraisal — a manifestation of Putin’s and his aides’ obsession with secrecy (well, what can we expect of a man who routinely escapes to his bunker in fear of death) — the world, and the Russians, even those on the battlefield, are aghast at the modern-day tsar’s recklessness. Disparagement by the commanders have led soldiers to commit grave excesses, the culmination of which we saw in the Bucha massacre. What could be more “heroic” for Mr Putin — the state media is already busy lacing these soldiers’ images with virtual praise garlands; a heroic feat indeed.
Would the victory be Russia’s, as in 1945? Time-tested theories of geopolitics and psychology ascertain the negatum. The de-Nazification is being carried out by one who can righty be equated to a Nazi, and that too the most horrendous.
With the future of a country as modern as Ukraine being at stake, no Western nation would allow the war to stretch into an unfading yarn through months and years. Apart from the palpitations of zealous TV hosts who cry that, they, the “Christians” are being butchered (like a person who hails from west Asia or Africa — whose vulnerability to war and poverty is dubbed a mere inevitability, if not a commonplace occurrence for what would their lives be were it not for destruction), the reasons for not pushing Ukraine into a state of delirium are pragmatic. For one, the threats a long war such as this, would engender on the borders of Europe and secondly, and more importantly, the dangerous precedent this would set for the rest of the world, a fitting inspiration to the fanatics who sit on the high-end chairs of their nations feeding on their arsonist whims.
If Russia fails to hold up in the coming weeks, at least in Donbas, where it purports to have considerable leverage — the first portion of a pie it considers its “own” — Russia will have to hide its face and retreat home, with no booty in their hands. In the event of such a strategic failure, Mr Putin might either back down, call it quits, pull out troops and take a quiet journey home, not including the humiliation his botoxed face will be susceptible to, from calls of ‘war criminal’ to ‘dictator’, only speculative theories can offer us relief about what would happen in Russia, and for the larger community that constitutes it. Or, Mr. Putin could appeal for a full-fledged national mobilisation, enlisting all and sundry into the army, employ every resource it can scour in its arsenal, and chalk up an intense attack on Ukraine. Be it successful or not, it’s the psychology that serves such a decision, and the mentality of a leader who’s fighting his last battle, to save his face (literally) and the helplessness of the many men and women who have no choice but to either abstain or accede to the decisions of the master, is what concerns us, the consequences of the former being particularly acute that no one would wish to choose it, if they consider their lives precious.
Well, these hypotheses just remain that, hypotheses. Theories abound, of what might, and might not happen. But it’s the ground reality that attests to the (feigned) pledges of Russia, which will determine Ukraine’s fate.
The Unsaturated Reader 