How Much Longer Can Putin Ignore Reality?

Note:  My readers know that I do not trust the Western media to report anything correctly.  I do not say that The Telegraph article is credible.  I say it is the new narrative that as Russia is on the ropes Putin can be coerced into a cease fire and thereby no negotiation is necessary that addresses the root cause.

Russia’s President Putin should read The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli and ponder the famous statement that “it is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.”  Putin’s problem is that he is neither loved nor feared.

Western propaganda has made him unloved, and Putin himself has made himself not feared. President Trump now mocks Putin’s Russia as a “paper tiger.” Putin after four years of conflict hasn’t won a war he should have won, as I have said so many times and as Trump now says, in one week.

Having failed to fight for a quick victory and to enforce redlines, Putin has relied on announcements of new super weapons to substitute for the lack of response to ever-worsening provocations that Putin’s never-ending war continues to produce.  Having backed down in the face of every provocation, Putin has squandered the Russian deterrent.

The Kremlin has been unable to prevent Trump and the West from defining the solution as a cease fire.  In an effort to coerce Putin into a cease fire, Trump has now placed sanctions on Russia’s oil customers, India and China.  Writing in the British Telegraph on October 26, Melissa Lawford, described as US Economics Correspondent, reports that Russia finally begins to buckle as it runs out of cards to play just as Trump turns the screws.

Lawford writes that:

“Suddenly, Putin has many reasons to be worried.

“Russia’s economy is beginning to buckle. Businesses have been crippled by high interest rates, government borrowing costs have soared and economy minister Maxim Reshetnikov warned in June that the country was ‘on the brink of a recession’. Warnings are mounting over a potential avalanche of bad debt that could trigger a financial crisis.

“Small pockets of protest are emerging. Earlier this month, hundreds of people gathered in St Petersburg Square to sing an outlawed song calling for Putin to be overthrown.

“Meanwhile, Ukraine has been aggressively ramping up its drone attacks on Russian oil refineries, hammering the country’s petrol supplies.

“Now Donald Trump is turning the screws. After frustration over a lack of progress to end the war in Ukraine, the US president announced new sanctions on two of Russia’s biggest oil companies on Wednesday.

“India and China, the main buyers of Russian oil since the war began, responded by curbing purchases. It threatens to cut off crucial oil revenues to Putin’s war machine – and the Russian state.

“’For the first time in three and a half years, Russia’s really getting hurt,’ says Timothy Ash, an associate fellow at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia programme. ‘I think there’s some panic.’”

On top of it all a “banking crisis looms” with the prospect of bankrupt companies and a large government budget deficit.

Worst of all, Putin’s never-ending war has come home to the Russian population.

“Thick plumes of smoke have been rising from Russian oil refineries across the country this year following an unprecedented barrage of Ukrainian drone attacks.

“Since January, Ukraine has hit 21 of Russia’s 38 largest refineries where crude oil is refined into products like petrol. It has struck as far as 683 miles into Russia from the Ukrainian border.

“So much supply has been knocked out that petrol prices have surged by 40% since the start of the year. Officials have introduced rationing in occupied Crimea while small petrol stations in Siberia have closed down. Social media is filled with video footage of enormous queues of cars waiting to fill up.”

The Telegraph article sets out the new narrative.  Russia is on the ropes.  John Herbst of the Atlantic Council sees paranoia setting in. Timothy Ash of Chatham House sees panic. Harvard’s Craig Kennedy sees a large dark pool of debt that could undermine the economy and the banks’ ability to finance war procurement.  With Putin’s central bank director’s 16.5% interest rates, there is no money available to prevent a systemic crisis. All the while Putin clings to his faith in negotiations with Trump, which is nonsensical as Trump has defined Putin’s resistance to a cease fire as Putin’s disappointing unwillingness to negotiate.  Putin further degraded himself in the eyes of the West by responding to Trump’s sanctions on Russia’s oil customers by sending Kirill Dmitriev to Washington to continue negotiations.  Whatever the truth in this narrative, it is not one that encourages the West to address the root cause of the problem, which is Russia’s security.

With the West convinced that Russia faces collapse, how can Putin think he has a negotiation position?  Since 2014 Putin has used strong words never backed by strong action. Putin has no credibility.  Trump and the Europeans do not want the war to end.  It is too profitable for the US military/security complex with billions of dollars in commissions spilling over into the pockets of European policymakers. The prospect of immediate wealth overwhelms any concern about a future nuclear confrontation, which there will eventually be when the provocations Putin has encouraged become too great for Putin to ignore.

Inside Russia both the Deputy Foreign Minister and the host of the most important Russian state TV news analysis program said that negotiations have failed, and the only alternative is for Russia to end the war by destroying Ukraine’s ability to continue fighting.  Polls show that Russians have a high level of support for Putin, but they also show that Russians want the war to end now with a Russian victory.

How much longer can Putin ignore reality?

Trump also denies reality.  RT reports:

Trump backs renewed Israeli strikes in Gaza

The US president denied that the resumption of hostilities was “jeopardizing” the ceasefire

US President Donald Trump has defended Israel’s renewed strikes in Gaza nearly three weeks into a ceasefire he helped broker.

With both Trump and Putin in denial of reality, no good decisions can be made. The deployment of nuclear weapons continues. Putin’s failure to put a stop to Western provocations is leading directly to nuclear war.

Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov replies to increasing provocations with pleas for negotiations thereby increasing Western contempt for Russia.

Russia remains ready for a potential meeting between President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, presidential aide Yury Ushakov has said.

Is Ushakov signaling Russia’s willingness to surrender and to accept a cease fire?  The West has made it clear that a cease fire is all that the West is interested in negotiating.

After four wasted years, the only way out for Russia from Putin’s never-ending ever-widening war is to destroy Kiev’s ability to continue the war. It is not possible for Putin to continue his strategic blunder any longer.