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Putin’s desperate bid for quick victory

Fears are rising that an increasingly desperate Vladimir Putin has ordered his troops to seize Kyiv within the next 24 hours — by any means necessary.

Jamie SeidelJamie Seidel
@JamieSeidel
4 min read
February 27, 2022 - 9:19PM
Terrifying moment Russian missile hits civilian building in Kyiv, Ukraine

Fears are rising that an increasingly desperate Vladimir Putin has ordered his troops to seize Ukraine’s capital Kyiv within the next 24 hours — by all means necessary and at any cost.

Bellingcat, the investigative journalism site that exposed the Russian agents behind the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 in 2014, say they have seen Russian command discussions.

“There’s a lot of chatter and purported leaks on silovik telegram channels that the General Staff has instructed that Kyiv be taken by Monday (Tuesday Australian time),” Bellingcat executive director Christo Grozev tweeted this morning.

“As a rule, I wouldn’t trust any of these channels, but the info tracks with other info from Kremlin insiders, and it makes sense given what we know of Putin’s plans, needs and obsessions. And in this context, the surge we see/expect makes sense. Using hundreds of tanks on Kyiv is inefficient and dangerous for the aggressor, as Grozny proved (and Kyiv is even more high-rise, dense and armed). If they do bring tanks into the city, it will be at a huge human cost and would only be to meet some desperate deadline from above.”

Four hours later, US Republican Senator Marco Rubio appeared to support the claim.

“Russian military leaders should think very carefully before following the orders they recently received,” he tweeted. “Putin is two years shy of the life expectancy of a Russian male, and you will spend the rest of your lives evading an international tribunal for committing his crimes.”

The two high-profile figures are commenting in an environment filled with speculation by military analysts and strategists.

They know Russia has only a limited stockpile of advanced guided ammunition. They also know Russia’s military has relatively few highly-trained and well-equipped units. The bulk are conscripts issued out-of-date weapons and vehicles.

Mostly, reports from the ground in Ukraine indicate the war has entered a new, brutal phase of fighting.

A Russian tank destroyed by Ukrainian forces in Luhansk region. Picture: Anatolii Stepanov/AFP
A Russian tank destroyed by Ukrainian forces in Luhansk region. Picture: Anatolii Stepanov/AFP

Indiscriminate assault

Senior Russia analyst for the US think-tank CNA Michael Kofman says he fears things are about to get “ugly”.

“I think today we’ve seen a shift in Russian targeting towards critical civilian infrastructure, greater use of MLRS, and artillery in suburban areas,” he tweeted. “Unfortunately, my concern that this was going to get a lot more ugly and affect civilians are starting to materialise.”

Video, photo and text commentary coming out of Ukraine have prompted this view.

No longer are the explosions the sharp, bright blasts of precision weapons. Instead, they are rolling, flickering barrages of extended artillery fire and cluster munitions.

These are far less accurate. Their purpose is to damage as wide an area as possible in the hope of hitting something vital.

“This is what scares me at the moment,” says Kings College London Russia specialist Professor Sam Greene. “The war was already killing civilians, but the pace seems to be picking up.”

Mr Kofman agrees.

“My fear, looking at this 72 hours in, is all the worst is yet to come,” he adds.

And the greatest danger comes as President Putin’s carefully constructed myths come crashing down around him.

President Putin also appears to have so far sought to fight a relatively “clean” war – without the brutality seen in previous Russian military operations. He knows the world is watching and that he must govern Ukraine once the invasion is complete.

“For the first 48 hours or so, this war was not Chechnya or Syria,” says Prof Greene. “While Amnesty and others have chronicled criminal attacks on civilians, there had not been the kind of wanton destruction the Russian military has inflicted elsewhere.”

An unrelenting assault by unguided artillery, cluster munitions and thermobaric warheads will change this.

A view of the Kyiv skyline. Picture: Pierre Crom/Getty Images
A view of the Kyiv skyline. Picture: Pierre Crom/Getty Images

House of cards

“One aspect of this war is that Moscow has generally been trying to keep it hidden from the Russian public,” says Mr Kofman. “They not only sought a quick & easy victory, but hoped to suppress news about the fighting, keeping images of mil operations across Ukraine out of the public eye.”

Moscow has attempted to take a page out of Beijing’s playbook.

Words such as “invasion” and “war” have been banned on Russian social media and news reports. International services such as Twitter and Facebook face censorship and shutdowns.

“Domestic perceptions likely a major factor behind the initial concept of the Russian mil operation, which seems to be driven by bad political assumptions, but also unrealistic timelines,” says Mr Kofman. “The latter, I suspect, tied to a desire to hide a war that would be deeply unpopular.”

Meanwhile, Russian television remains committed mainly to regular programming. The action in Ukraine is only being reported as a peacekeeping operation in the previously occupied eastern region.

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“It’s more likely to be because Putin doesn’t want pictures of Ukrainian cities reduced to rubble to find their way back to a public that is still sceptical of this war, Prof Greene adds. “The more brutal the war gets, though, the harder it will be to cover it up.”

Every day Ukrainian resistance fighters hold out seriously undermines this disinformation strategy. And protests are already being seen in several Russian cities.

“If Michael is right — and I believe he is — then the impact of this change in tactics will be felt in Russia, too,” adds Prof Greene. “As the Moscow political analyst Kirill Rogov wrote earlier today, the only way to ramp up brutality in Ukraine is simultaneously to ramp up brutality at home.”

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Original URL: https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/putins-desperate-bid-for-quick-victory/news-story/36586ed64aaf4cb83e6f3d17fa506173