Since its earliest days, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has appeared a gross miscalculation. Until this week, Russia’s president had largely seemed to escape the consequences of his error. Recent days, however, have laid bare the catalogue of bad assumptions that underlay, and followed, Putin’s unprovoked assault on Russia’s neighbour.
Ukraine’s rout of Russian forces in the Kharkiv region does not necessarily presage a swift end to the conflict. But it highlights anew the Kremlin’s mistaken expectation that Russia’s size and military resources meant that the smaller Ukraine would fall into its lap — and that Ukrainians would welcome their Russian “liberators” with flowers.
It also exposes Moscow’s error in assuming that the forces it had committed would be sufficient to achieve the scaled-down target of seizing and holding all of eastern Ukraine once Moscow had pulled troops out from around Kyiv and the north — without a general mobilisation. Moscow is resisting a national call-up even now. But there are signs of increasing difficulties recruiting soldiers. Footage emerged this week of a Putin ally offering prisoners their freedom in return for serving in Ukraine.