Ukraine Shatters Russian Defenses

A pivotal moment in the war in Ukraine

In the last 24 hours, it’s become clear that Ukraine’s two-pronged offensive has shattered Russia’s northern front, and has likely changed the face of the entire conflict, which for months had remained a static war of attrition and artillery duels that seemed to favor the lumbering Russian behemoth.

No more. In dramatic fashion, Ukrainian armed forces pushed deep into Russian-occupied territory today, in what military analysts are calling a highly effective combined arms campaign that criss-crossed much of the country.

As became evident this morning, Ukraine’s lightning advance has scattered the Russian defenses in key parts of both the northern and southern theaters of the war, with scores of Russian soldiers reportedly shedding their uniforms and fleeing, refusing to fight in the face of the onslaught.

Ukrainian forces advanced in the Kherson and Kharkiv regions, breaking through along broad swathes of the frontline, which seemingly collapsed today. This is a singular and stinging humiliation for the Kremlin, comparable perhaps only to the Russian retreat from Kyiv earlier in the war.

It’s an unmitigated disaster for Vladimir Putin. Thus, it’s a perilous moment for the wider world, as the Kremlin weighs its response to yet another military embarrassment.

As the frontline disintegrated, Vladimir Putin was in Moscow unveiling a brand new ferris wheel, as part of gaudy celebrations marking the 875th anniversary of Moscow’s founding. For some Russians, particularly hawkish military bloggers embedded with retreating forces, the split screen dissonance was too much to endure, and reinforced a gnawing sense that the Kremlin is badly mismanaging its own war.

Indeed, enraged Russian war bloggers have been sounding the alarms for days about the threat of Ukrainian advances, to no avail. After Ukrainian forces broke through and took Izyum and Balakliya, the Russian Ministry of Defense first announced yesterday they were sending reinforcements, before announcing today a “strategic regrouping,” or retreat.

It’s yet another humiliation in a war filled with setbacks, mishaps, and strategic blunders for Russia, in a conflict that has been a showcase of Russian incompetence, and brutality. Among pro-war Russians, these losses are prompting rare criticism of the Kremlin, and Putin himself.

The question now: how will Putin react?

Clearly, the Kremlin has been caught utterly off guard by the ferocity of the Ukrainian offensive, despite ample warning. After months of mounting supply and morale problems, Russian forces finally caved in, unable to mount a serious defense.

This is a turning point in this war, a moment of truth for Kyiv, Washington, and the Kremlin. Who will blink first?

Frankly, I have two somewhat contradictory impulses in my head about the war, and they can be difficult to reconcile. Of course, I want to see Ukraine push back these Russian invaders back across the border, to defend their fledgling democracy against a vicious dictator’s unprovoked aggression.

Certainly, I rejoice when I see Ukrainian victories.

Yet I also implicitly understand a dark truth: the worse Vladimir Putin’s army fares on the battlefield, the more of a threat he becomes to the entire world. It’s a counterintuitive reality, but a very serious one. This offensive is precisely the kind of development I fear might render Putin increasingly desperate, and thus, dangerous.

The moment right before his regime collapses will be the most perilous for the world, when Putin could conceivably reach for any one of his many nuclear weapons, to prevent outright military loss in Ukraine, and save himself from being toppled. After all, if Russia’s conventional forces are routed, tactical nuclear weapons would presumably become the next logical step for a regime desperate to avoid a complete military catastrophe.

There’s a very real risk of Putin doing something that is utterly insane to save his own skin. As they say, desperate men do desperate things.

The Western world simply doesn’t have the luxury of not thinking about these issues, and working to prevent this war from spinning utterly out of control. While it’s emotionally satisfying to call for Putin’s head, that may not be the wisest course of action.

I’ve been called a naive rube and worse for calling for renewed diplomacy with Russia, but I’ll risk that label. Eventually, Ukraine must try to leverage its mounting progress on the battlefield into some kind of negotiated peace, backed by the White House and NATO. Diplomatic conduits to the Kremlin must be explored, in Tel Aviv, Beijing, Ankara; Washington should feel out whomever is still talking to the Kremlin, and see if negotiations are a possibility.

Peace must be the ultimate goal here, even as the fighting continues. In that brief window of time right before Vladimir Putin is toppled, when he could theoretically use nuclear weapons, there should be another option available to him: diplomacy.

Moral maximalism won’t end this war.

Still, negotiations may be a fantasy right now. For the moment, I suspect the Biden administration is content to let Putin feel the pressure of his failures, and then carefully gauge his response.

With the Kremlin increasingly facing political pressure from within Russia itself, and Putin looking more and more detached from the situation on the ground, anything is possible, including a coup, or a nightmarish escalation.

For now, it’s good to see Ukraine have success on the battlefield.

Still, it’s not without risks of its own. Vladimir Putin has put himself into a terrible corner, where he can either risk military defeat, or pull Russia into a total war footing. His options are dwindling fast.

As always, the world pays for the crimes of a dictator, until the moment that dictator is out of power.

Let’s hope that moment comes sooner rather than later.

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