Russia-Ukraine war: Why Vladimir Putin will be ‘furious’ after he has failed to take Ukraine swiftly

Vladimir Putin has a distinct image of himself — and he’s fighting a war he is failing to win. Now hiding in a bunker, this is why he’s facing a new internal turmoil.

Twenty years ago Vladimir Putin agreed to an autobiography to let the world know a little bit more about the largely unknown man running the world’s largest country.

He recalled a time when his family’s apartment block was over run with rats and as a youth decided it was up to him to do something so he cornered the weakest of the pack.

“It had nowhere to run,” he recalled in interviews in 2000 that formed the basis of his tome, his only real musings into himself and his life.

“Suddenly it lashed around and threw itself at me. I was surprised and frightened. Now the rat was chasing me. Luckily, I was a little faster and I managed to slam the door shut in its nose. There, on that stair landing, I got a quick and lasting lesson in the meaning of the word cornered.”

It is perhaps a metaphor for Mr Putin’s approach to global politics and now his invasion of Ukraine and status as a global pariah.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin during a meeting with members of Russian business community in the Moscow Kremlin. Picture: Getty

The war with his neighbour has so far been a disaster militarily for him as the Supreme Commander in Chief, when he decided to invade Ukraine that he considered one of the weaker of the former states from the USSR.

One week into the conflict and he has been stunned how Ukraine, clearly outmatched, has lashed around like a rat and is now holding its own.

The war though is also likely to be a disaster personally for Mr Putin, certainly ending his long held dream to recreate the glory of the USSR, prior to its 1991 collapse but also ending Russia itself.

Again like his taunting rat, Mr Putin has completely misjudged his prey and now his nation teeters on the verge of collapse leaving its population to scratch their heads and wonder how it all came to this.

It seems only a short time ago a bemused world saw Mr Putin bare chested on horse back or wrestling a supposed hapless opponent in judo or in combat fatigues out hunting stag.

He wanted that image.

Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in a training session with members of the Russian national judo team in Sochi. Picture: AFP

Now he is locked away in a bunker, isolated and forced to threaten nuclear holocaust to show some semblance of power and strength.

It’s over for him and Russia but again like the rat, he has chosen just to slam the door closed on the issue.

“He really supposed it would take two hours to get Kyiv, for all people to surrender immediately and meet Russians with flowers and that’s all,” one of Ukraine’s leading commentators and former activist Myroslav Marynovych told News Corp Australia yesterday.

“He lives within his own constructed reality but it is false, a big lie and now Ukraine is bleeding, Ukraine is suffering but I am sure Russia is dying.”

Former Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev.

Mr Marynovych knows only too well the psyche that drives Mr Putin and Soviet leaders before him as he was jailed in a hard labour camp in the Urals for seven years then exiled for his criticism of the Kremlin and push for human rights in the 1970s and ‘80s.

It wasn’t till 1987 he was “forgiven” by President Mikhail Gorbachev and 200 political prisoners were released as a gift to the West.

Myroslav Marynovych, Ukrainian dissident and political activist jailed by the Soviets and later exiled, until pardoned by Gorbachov in 1987. Now Vice Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University for External Affairs Ukraine. Picture: Charles Miranda

He said Mr Putin chose to conduct the invasion now as demographically his country was faltering, citizens wanted greater freedom offered by democracy, China was moving silently into his sphere of influence and the identity of Russia was in jeopardy.

“Russia cannot exist in this world so that is why he decided this is the last moment for Russia to throw out the chessboard and impose and establish new rules,” he said.

“I am sure fear is struggling with the fury in his soul. On the one hand I’m sure he is furious about failure to invade Ukraine, furious, because he hates Ukrainians and to realise that this nation he humiliated every possible time, is stronger. David is fighting Goliath and he is furious.”

The diminutive Mr Putin, a former KGB spy, seemingly appeared from nowhere when he landed on the political stage firstly as prime minister then as president.

Russian politician President Vladimir Putin carrying a hunting rifle in the Republic of Tuva.

He had been working for Soviet ruler Boris Yeltsin and it was here he began to see the West as an enemy to the values and glory of the USSR. When the empire collapsed under the weight of glasnost he made a move and vowed to some day restore an empire. It was to be his legacy. The father of two – but more likely more with numerous women claiming to have had his love children – has fiercely defended his privacy and now more than ever with claims not even his cabinet knew he was about to launch a Ukraine invasion.

Kyiv Mayor and former WBO heavyweight world champion Vitali Klitschko said the war was the action of a megalomaniac.

Heavyweight boxing champion, turned Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko. Picture: AFP

“Russia are killing civilians, they kill Ukrainians, they came to our country and our homes … this is a war against democracy … but there is a reason, a reason and that is the idea of one man who sits in Moscow to recreate an empire. We don’t want to go to a Russian Empire, we see our future as part of European family, a democratic modern Ukraine.”

Mr Putin is a multi-billionaire, some say possibly the richest man in the world having created a system that affords him access to great wealth, including a $1.5 billion palatial compound as spectacularly revealed by critic Alexei Navalny who now languishes in jail.

John R. Bryson, Professor of Enterprise and Economic Geography at the University of Birmingham, said Mr Putin’s failure to overwhelm Ukraine meant he was extremely vulnerable and at his most dangerous.

“Central to much of Putin’s rhetoric is a concern with his image and a sensitivity to any form of perceived disrespect. In Putin’s world he is always right.”