Vladimir Putin’s blitzkrieg in Ukraine was supposed to be a stroke of strategic genius: in one fell swoop, a resurgent Russia would redraw the map of Europe, reducing Ukraine to a demilitarized zone in the Kremlin’s cordon sanitaire against the West. NATO, at long last, would be stopped in its tracks and put in its place.
Not without reason is Putin often called a master tactician but poor strategist. Only now he is searching for something he can sell as a tactical victory.
In more than three months of fierce fighting, Russia has failed to take Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, or its second city, Kharkiv. Seizing the port of Mariupol has come at the cost of leveling the city. Evidence of atrocities committed by Russian soldiers against Ukrainian civilians is mounting by the day. The toll in human lives already runs into the tens of thousands, with countless more damaged irreparably.
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