Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot accept that his incompetent military has failed in his invasion of Ukraine.
So he desperately tried to spin the story to his people that they were already at war with the West.
First, Putin insists his invasion is to “de-nazify” the Kyiv-based Ukrainian government – even though President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish.
Later, when his three-day invasion began to drag on for months, his war was recast as a “holy crusade” against the “powers of Satan”.
Now, as the conflict approaches its third year, Putin needs to find new arguments to appease a general public grappling with the appalling death toll.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared Ukraine “not an enemy” and instead set his sights on new targets. AP
“Ukraine itself is not our enemy,” Putin told a soldier while visiting a hospital for the war wounded. “Those who want to destroy the Russian state and achieve the strategic defeat of Russia on the battlefield are mainly in the West.”
Putin then tried to recast his war as Russia’s eternal ideological struggle.
“The meaning is not that they (the West) are helping our enemies. They are our enemies,” he said. “They solve their own problems with their hands. That’s what it means. Unfortunately, this has been the case for centuries and continues to be the case today.
“Ukraine itself is not our enemy,” Putin told a soldier. “Those who want to destroy the Russian state and achieve the strategic defeat of Russia on the battlefield are mainly in the West.” POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Analysts for the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) believe Putin’s rhetoric is a sign the war is no closer to ending.
On the contrary, his words reflect “an effort to establish the conditions for the permanent construction of the Russian army and to justify high battlefield sacrifices.”
“Putin’s statement may suggest that he is preparing a long-term justification for keeping troops deployed and engaged in combat to defend Russia’s continued sovereignty against the West,” it concluded.
High blood pressure. But what is the product?
“Although it has been their (the West’s) goal to deal with Russia for a long time, we will deal with them more quickly,” Putin assured the injured during his visit to the hospital.
“And the most important thing we have is … the unity of our people and society. Because there is an understanding of how important your job is on the battlefield in the armed struggle for our country and our future.”
That, Russia analysts believe, is the whole point of Putin’s latest spin.
“The war in Ukraine created an entirely new political reality for the Kremlin and prompted the formation of a modified ideological base for the rule of Russian President Vladimir Putin,” argued Carnegie Endowment senior fellow Andrei Kolesnikov.
Now, Putin is all about “traditional spiritual and moral values.”
And his totalitarian government, says Kolesnikov, “requires a certain level of self-justification.”
But Putin’s previous declarations to “degrade” Ukraine and “fight the forces of Satan” are no longer enough.
A recently released US intelligence report estimates Russian casualties (dead and wounded) since the start of the war in February 2022 to be about 315,000.
Police officers and residents inspect the damage outside a high-rise building destroyed by a Russian missile strike in central Kyiv, on January 3, 2024. AFP via Getty Images Utility workers repair water pipes outside a high-rise building destroyed by the missile strike. AFP via Getty Images
Ukrainian losses remain classified.
But they are also believed to be very high.
“High sacrifices for small territorial gains are likely to prompt Putin to present a strong and ideological justification for continuing the protracted war of choice in which he has waged Russia,” ISW analysts agreed. “Ukraine does not need elaborate excuses for the high losses and suffering that Putin’s aggression has inflicted on its people, even when Ukraine’s military operations have not yielded the desired results. The war really exists for Ukraine because it is not for Russia.”
Undeniable ego
“Putin’s regime has put in place a permanent government and a very personal semi-totalitarian style of government,” argued Kolesnikov. “Such a regime requires the cultivation of fundamental ideological principles and a historical justification for its despotism, all of which must also be disseminated to the masses.”
It also explains the constant stream of outlandish and absurd claims voiced by Kremlin propagandists.
“The messages pushed by the leading ideologues of the Putin regime increasingly resemble caricatures,” said Kolesnikov. “Indeed, the less reliable the information, the more Putin’s ideologues use it.”
A recent accusation by long-time Putin-allied Security Council chief Nikolai Patruschev stated that the “Anglo-Saxon elite” believed Siberia was the safest refuge from the impending eruption of the Yellowstone volcano in the western United States. And that, Patruschev insisted, is why the West wants to attack Russia.
Other unusual claims such as Poland have secret territorial designs on Belarus and Ukraine.
And Finland wants to seize a large area in the north of Russia.
But none of this masks Russia as a country that attacks its neighbors.
“The pattern is self-serving because it’s clumsy and ridiculous,” Kolesnikov says.
“All this may seem like empty political talk, but such claims have several purposes at once. They are at the same time a means of conveying ideology (and) the instrument used to define and create it … In the hands of the Kremlin, ideology under Putin is a political strategy and a product of its work.”
The Ukraine-Russia war begins on February 24, 2022. Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images “The war in Ukraine created an entirely new political reality for the Kremlin and prompted the formation of a modified ideological basis for the rule of Russian President Vladimir Putin,” argued the senior fellow of the Carnegie Endowment Andrei Kolesnikov. AP
The Kremlin relies on fabricated stories to support slogans like “We are not the same as everyone else!” “We have special DNA!” “We fight wickedness and enemies on the Western border of our country!” “We need to defend ourselves by reclaiming our ancient territories and ‘liberating’ them!’”
“In short, the best defense of the besieged Russian nation is attack,” said Kolesnikov.
Signs and omens
“They (the West) have nurtured the Kyiv regime for quite some time, precisely to create this conflict,” Putin said. “Unfortunately for us, they have achieved this: they started this conflict and tried to achieve their objective, which is the task of fighting Russia.”
A woman carries her belongings that were salvaged from an apartment destroyed by the Russian attack. AP
Its aim, ISW analysts believe, is to convince its troops – and the public – that an unexpectedly successful resistance by Ukraine is to be expected.
That the battle is always against Europe and the United States.
And that the battle must continue.
A recently declassified US intelligence report estimated that some 315,000 Russian casualties (dead and wounded) were accounted for. Global Image of Ukraine via Getty Images
Former New Zealand diplomat Ian Hill argues in the Lowy Institute Interpreter that Putin is showing renewed confidence amid support from his allies in China and North Korea, and opposition from the US Republican Party to rearming Ukraine.
“The war in Ukraine may be deadlocked for now, but Putin thinks it will be in Moscow,” he wrote. “Economic stability, coupled with strict domestic control reinforced by widespread propaganda, has ensured political calm in Russia. Polls show the war in Ukraine is becoming increasingly unpopular among Russians. But there are still no signs of this undermining the regime’s secure power.”
President Putin recently asserted that Moscow has recruited 486,000 additional people for the army by 2023.
President Putin recently pointed out that Moscow has recruited 486,000 additional people for the army by 2023. via REUTERS
He stated that they will be equipped and trained in time for a new major offensive in 2024.
With international sanctions failing to cripple its economy, its biggest challenge now is to motivate its population.
“Having failed to chart a viable path for Russia’s future and lost the race with the so-called global West and the increasingly China-centered global East, the Putin regime cannot abandon its leadership ambitions,” concluded Kolesnikov. “Instead it directs all its energy to claw its way back to the storied past.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
