Putin is said to be very clever. His progression from midlevel KGB to President of Russia is a point in fact. There is no consensus that he is demented. There is every indication that he is ruthless and a sore loser. Yet is he the loser? I wonder.
Destroying Ukraine so NATO would not be able to occupy the country in any meaningful way without having to expend countless hundreds of millions to rebuild, I believe this is Putin’s objective.
I think the Putin strategy now, since his blitzkrieg attack did not go well, is to obliterate as much of Ukraine as he can. Flatten the cities as much as possible. Launch as many cruise missiles and fire as many rockets as you can. Destroy non-military targets and infrastructure like schools and hospitals and airports and warehouses. Cripple the power grid and the communications sites. Demoralize the population. Create as many destitute lives as possible. A flood of refugees going out of Ukraine will then create a backwash coming back into Ukraine, and for what, for the rubble? To do what, rebuild their lives?
Putin will take the Donbas region and other contested area he believes are part of Ukraine. He will secure the entire coastline along the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea all the way to Odessa. He will be able to secure these ‘repatriated rebel’ areas with his forces. He will secure these areas as the spoils of war. The Russian people will see Putin as a liberator for having helped their oppressed Russian brothers in the Donbas and for taking Crimea in 2014 and now for having secured Odessa with the possibility of linking to the Russian separatists currently operating in Moldova.
Putin has no intention of taking Kyiv as it would be practically impossible to hold for a long period of time. He is dropping his desire for a puppet regime in Ukraine since, once he has inflicted the destruction a Ukrainian government would have its hands full just trying to rebuild. There is no need to have a Russian puppet government installed where he would have had to continue to fight civilian dissent.
Putin will leave Ukraine with such a mess on its hands that he could with a huge grin on his face leave and feel assured that he has achieved leaving Ukraine as a lifeless buffer zone between Russian autocracy and the potential for a democratic nation taking a stronger foothold.
Putin should not be allowed to have any off ramp from this conflict he generated. Putin and the Russian state needs to be held to account for every dollar it will take to stabilize and rebuild Ukraine. Putin cannot be allowed to waltz in and wreck havoc and then saunter out as if nothing out of the ordinary happened.
Putin has caused immeasurable costs to the rest of the world. We will have wheat shortages around the globe if Ukraine is not able to farm this expansive fertile belt. There will be shortages of other commodities as well, such as 30% of global demands for Sunflower oil. Not to mention the fact that oil/gas pressures will not subside in Europe with Russia holding their hands on the tap that the EU have become so dependent on.
It will take a minimum of 10years (minimum) for Ukraine to recover. And Putin will lay in his dacha and swim in his pool and count his money all the while watching the hapless European community and the west and the global community forking over billions in aide and rebuilding efforts, effectively hand tying us all into expending resources to clean up Putin’s mess.
How to get Putin to pay for this act of global terrorism? The only way after Putin meets and agrees with Ukraine to a cease fire approach will be to continue the sanctions until ALL costs for the rebuilding of Ukraine have been recovered, no matter how long that takes. Sanctions on Belarus is also a necessity as it was from there that many attacks were allowed to transpire as well as many rockets were fired from. It will be up to the west and the global community to hold any country that helps Russia stay afloat (e.g., China) as also complicit in the cost recovery efforts. This needs to be made clear to China and they must continually be reminded of this until Ukraine has been restored to a functioning country.
Just because Putin has secured the Black Sea each and every ship coming through there to reach the open oceans for maritime traffic needs to be either blocked or taxed/seized until all financial reparations have been realized in the Ukraine rebuilding. Russia cannot be allowed to benefit from the seizures of this land mass in Ukraine which secured the Black Sea and forced Ukraine to be land locked.
All air travel from Russia must remain blocked to any country by the global community until full reparations, even if that takes tens of years. Any country allowed to host Russian aircraft will be placed on the same sanctions list as Russia. If Russians want to take a vacation it is going to have to be within Russia where their Ruble has better purchasing power. Even if the Russian regime changes and Putin is thrown out of office the Russian State must still be on the hook for making restitution. Russia is barred from any/all international events or conferences. They must drift in the winds until all costs have been recovered. Satellites and monitoring will occur to make sure Russia is not running amok such as with military buildup or creating a huge Nuclear arsenal.
The Russian people are somewhat complicit in allowing Putin’s reign of terror for so many years and so should not be allowed to sweep it all under the rug so easily. Some may think this is harsh but without some sort of penitence where is the learning that in the 21st century such actions can never be tolerated by a country or allowed by the populace of that country. There must be rules of thumb that the Russian people must work at such as demonstrating that they are opening their society to the truths that exist and not hiding behind lies and propaganda or are not meddling into the affairs of other countries, such as messing with democratic elections.
Further, Russia needs to be removed from the UN security council and blacklisted from being the lead in any/all committees. If they remain a member of the UN they must lose all leadership roles and any ability to veto any votes until full reparations. Only then may they be considered for full membership again. They can speak and present views at the UN but their power to directly influence other nations has been forfeit.
Rules at the UN need to be updated/changed to make sure that no country that is seen as the instigator of any conflict which creates mass destruction or refugee flows is allowed to chair the UN Security Council and further, that country should lose the right of veto to anything until they have extracted themselves from the conflict. What Putin and the Russian Federation has done with Ukraine has driven a sharp steak into the hearts of the global community from price increases to food shortages. As a United group of Nations a bad actor cannot be allowed to extort what the UN charter was designed to achieve.
Ukraine will be provided with over many years by the EU and the west and supported through the UN and NATO with all the assistance that any sovereign country needs from engineering to resources to medical to military. If Ukraine asks then it is an ask to be seriously considered. As a sovereign country Ukraine will be able to decide what they want and from whom. Russia will have absolutely no say in the course Ukraine takes or in the efforts any other country takes to provide something to Ukraine.
