Here is the beginning of an article at Foreign Policy magazine written by Peter Frankopan, a professor of global history at the University of Oxford (the rest is behind a firewall – sorry about that).
Take a look, and see if you can envision a grimmer picture than the one it portrays:
These are tricky times for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The “special military operation” he launched against Ukraine in 2022, intended to last a few days until a puppet regime in Kyiv could be installed, has now gone on longer than both the Soviet fight against Nazi Germany and all of World War I. His forces have long ceased making significant gains on the battlefield; some data even suggest that Russian forces lost territory in April and May. What gains the Russians have made have come at enormous cost: Last month, Anna Keast-Butler, the director of British intelligence agency GCHQ, cited new intelligence indicating that Russian war deaths had likely reached almost half a million; various Western sources put total Russian casualties at significantly more than 1 million.
In relative terms, the attrition losses are even more staggering. By some accounts, Russia is now incurring eight men killed or seriously wounded for every one lost by Ukraine. With average monthly casualties running at more than 30,000 this year, the Russian army is struggling to replace them with fresh recruits. It is offering sign-up bonuses as high as $80,000, and up to $140,000 in debt relief to encourage more men to enlist.
Those who do have little to look forward to. According to Russian military bloggers, the average life expectancy of a new recruit—from arrival at a training ground to death in a combat zone—lies somewhere between 10 days and three weeks. Once they are sent onto the battlefield, Russian fighters survive an average of 20 to 35 minutes. Much of the reason for this is the extraordinary shift in battlefield technology and tactics—in particular, the ways that drones have become the primary killing machines in this war, with stark implications for the future of combat in other parts of the world.
If there has been a more complete disaster in military actions among major countries in the past 50 years, I’d like to know what it is, because I can’t think of one.
In February of 2022, when Putin started this war, Russia was considered a major powerhouse. Most people assumed it would make quick work of the Ukraine – in maybe a few weeks, if even that long.
Well, we are now well into the fifth year of this war. And Russia has not won the war. Instead, it has lost up to a half million soldiers, well over a million total casualties, it has exposed its supposed military prowess as nothing more than paper tiger status…and it can be argued that the Ukraine is not only not losing the war, it is winning.
That is the legacy of vladimir putin.
A little perspective for you: Bill Buckner was an excellent major league ballplayer; a near hall-of-famer. But the one thing he will always be most remembered for was his error in the 6th game of the 1986 World Series that lost his team, the Boston Red Sox, game #6 – which, had they won, would have made them the World Series champions. Instead, The Mets won game #6, went on to win game #7, and become the champions instead.
Similarly, whatever positive accomplishments vladimir putin provided Russia over the years (assuming there are any), will forever be overshadowed by his Ukraine disaster.
From now on, when people think about vladimir putin, this is the first thing that will come to mind….with second place being the fact that Russians who have spoken up against him over the years have an amazingly high mortality rate (they fall out of windows, they’re poisoned, etc.).
Way to go, vladimir. Your place in history is solidly entrenched; you have to live with every second of it….and I suspect most Russians hope that there are very few remaining seconds left for you to do so.
Simply put, any day you die is likely to be a day of celebration for the country you have devastated.
