All and/or nothing

Russia rolls the dice in the Donbas

The war in Ukraine is still Russia’s to lose—and still a disaster either way, win or lose, with the Russian army now on the verge of total collapse, edging ever closer to a breaking point of casualties, now that they’ve suffered over 30,000 in less than four months of warfare. Putin has redirected his forces to focus on the resource-rich Donbas, where he should have packed his main punch in the first place. Now it may be too late. Even if Russia does take the region—for keeps—its army is unlikely to recover at the other end of the meat-grinder for at least a decade, leaving the Kremlin even more reliant (and perhaps quicker on the trigger) on its nuclear deterrent, not to mention more susceptible to the lure of a preemptive strike doctrine—even if unwritten—to eliminate perceived threats.

Meanwhile, rumors and leaks abound on the issue of Vladimir Putin’s health and whether his own people—“the people of force”—the siloviki—will use that force to remove him from power (without plunging the country into a catastrophic civil war). The Kremlin denies all of this, of course. Big surprise.