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What is Putin after?
Disclaimer: I have no background in foreign policy or military strategy, and I know no more about Putin or Ukraine than anybody else who reads the newspaper. So there's probably nothing particularly penetrating here. If you're OK with that, read on.
Distinctive in the current invasion has been the Russian military's focus on destroying civilian infrastructure and killing civilians, sometimes apparently after torture. We don't know for certain how much of that is ordered from on high (either the top general in charge of the invasion, or Putin himself) and how much is just Russian-military culture, but I'm guessing that at least the missile and artillery strikes on civilian targets (apartment buildings, passenger railroad stations, schools, hospitals, theaters) are ordered from a fairly high level. Why?
The most reasonable stated aim of the invasion was to not have a potential NATO member on Russia's border. Of course, Norway, Estonia, and Latvia (and arguably the US, via the Bering Strait) are already NATO members on Russia's border, while Lithuania and Poland are already NATO members bordering Belarus, a Russian puppet. If the invasion had been over in a few days, overthrowing the Ukrainian government and installing a Russian puppet government in Kyiv, it would have added Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia to the latter category, which isn't an obvious win. But Russia would have gained control of a bunch of territory and population, a few more Black Sea ports, a lot of agricultural production, and some additional routes for oil and gas pipelines. It's even conceivable, if the invasion had gone quickly and smoothly with few casualties, that many of the Ukrainian people would have acquiesced to living under a Russian puppet government that was at least Ukrainian in name.
But the invasion wasn't over in a few days, and Russian military strategy in the past month has looked very much like the bratty child I knew once who, denied a slice of pie, spat on the whole pie so nobody else would eat it either. If we don't get to run the factories and power plants and ports, we'll destroy them so nobody else can either. If we can't control the cities, we'll flatten them so they're no longer functioning cities. If the Ukrainian people don't want to live under Russian rule, we'll kill them so they're no longer people, or send them into exile so they're no longer Ukrainian. At this point, even if Russia somehow managed to overthrow the Ukrainian government, it would inherit not a profitable breadbasket but a major burden on its own economy (not to mention the expensive and indefinite military occupation of a deeply resentful populace). What's the end-game for Putin? What's he hoping to gain for Russia, or for himself?
Other people have pointed out that creating a refugee crisis worked out well for Putin when he did it in Syria: in the US and almost every European nation it caused a lot of political discord and strengthened right-wing populist political groups that are more sympathetic to Russia and less to the US. But it hasn't worked so well this time, partly because the refugees are mostly white and Christian and partly because this war was entirely Russian-instigated, rather than starting as an authentic domestic uprising. And it doesn't explain the willful destruction of civilian infrastructure (which I think was also a characteristic of the Chechen war). All I can think of for the latter is making Ukraine, like Chechnya, an object lesson for other countries: play by our rules, or be destroyed. Nice country you've got here; pity something should happen to it.
And here's the neat part, from Putin's perspective. Russia doesn't have to win this war in order to achieve that goal. Ukraine could "win" completely, in the sense that Russia withdraws with no more of Ukraine than it had three months ago, and it still will have suffered enormously. Russia will still have successfully sent its other neighbors the message that if Russia tells you to do something, you do it or your country gets flattened. The next neighbor might decide to skip the suffering and go along with what Putin wants.
Of course, protection rackets have no limits -- the "protector" is free to raise the price any time he wishes -- so even aside from nationalist sentiment, nobody likes living under that kind of arrangement. The only inoculation against it, in this case, appears to be NATO membership. Ukraine would probably have suffered a lot less, and likely not been invaded at all, if it had already been a NATO member, and for that reason a lot of other countries that hadn't seriously considered NATO membership are now lining up for it. Which is presumably not what Putin wanted to achieve.
Distinctive in the current invasion has been the Russian military's focus on destroying civilian infrastructure and killing civilians, sometimes apparently after torture. We don't know for certain how much of that is ordered from on high (either the top general in charge of the invasion, or Putin himself) and how much is just Russian-military culture, but I'm guessing that at least the missile and artillery strikes on civilian targets (apartment buildings, passenger railroad stations, schools, hospitals, theaters) are ordered from a fairly high level. Why?
The most reasonable stated aim of the invasion was to not have a potential NATO member on Russia's border. Of course, Norway, Estonia, and Latvia (and arguably the US, via the Bering Strait) are already NATO members on Russia's border, while Lithuania and Poland are already NATO members bordering Belarus, a Russian puppet. If the invasion had been over in a few days, overthrowing the Ukrainian government and installing a Russian puppet government in Kyiv, it would have added Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia to the latter category, which isn't an obvious win. But Russia would have gained control of a bunch of territory and population, a few more Black Sea ports, a lot of agricultural production, and some additional routes for oil and gas pipelines. It's even conceivable, if the invasion had gone quickly and smoothly with few casualties, that many of the Ukrainian people would have acquiesced to living under a Russian puppet government that was at least Ukrainian in name.
But the invasion wasn't over in a few days, and Russian military strategy in the past month has looked very much like the bratty child I knew once who, denied a slice of pie, spat on the whole pie so nobody else would eat it either. If we don't get to run the factories and power plants and ports, we'll destroy them so nobody else can either. If we can't control the cities, we'll flatten them so they're no longer functioning cities. If the Ukrainian people don't want to live under Russian rule, we'll kill them so they're no longer people, or send them into exile so they're no longer Ukrainian. At this point, even if Russia somehow managed to overthrow the Ukrainian government, it would inherit not a profitable breadbasket but a major burden on its own economy (not to mention the expensive and indefinite military occupation of a deeply resentful populace). What's the end-game for Putin? What's he hoping to gain for Russia, or for himself?
Other people have pointed out that creating a refugee crisis worked out well for Putin when he did it in Syria: in the US and almost every European nation it caused a lot of political discord and strengthened right-wing populist political groups that are more sympathetic to Russia and less to the US. But it hasn't worked so well this time, partly because the refugees are mostly white and Christian and partly because this war was entirely Russian-instigated, rather than starting as an authentic domestic uprising. And it doesn't explain the willful destruction of civilian infrastructure (which I think was also a characteristic of the Chechen war). All I can think of for the latter is making Ukraine, like Chechnya, an object lesson for other countries: play by our rules, or be destroyed. Nice country you've got here; pity something should happen to it.
And here's the neat part, from Putin's perspective. Russia doesn't have to win this war in order to achieve that goal. Ukraine could "win" completely, in the sense that Russia withdraws with no more of Ukraine than it had three months ago, and it still will have suffered enormously. Russia will still have successfully sent its other neighbors the message that if Russia tells you to do something, you do it or your country gets flattened. The next neighbor might decide to skip the suffering and go along with what Putin wants.
Of course, protection rackets have no limits -- the "protector" is free to raise the price any time he wishes -- so even aside from nationalist sentiment, nobody likes living under that kind of arrangement. The only inoculation against it, in this case, appears to be NATO membership. Ukraine would probably have suffered a lot less, and likely not been invaded at all, if it had already been a NATO member, and for that reason a lot of other countries that hadn't seriously considered NATO membership are now lining up for it. Which is presumably not what Putin wanted to achieve.
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