Putin has served continuously as Russian president or prime minister since 1999.
The Kremlin leader gambled on his “special military operation” launched on February 24, 2022, to reinforce his self-proclaimed role as an indispensable national figure.
But instead the war has turned into a bloody quagmire for the Russian army and Putin that one expert believes has sent his iron rule into a death spiral.
Associate Professor Matthew Sussex from Australian National University said the war proved a massive misjudgment by Putin.
“There is no doubt the war is the beginning of the end for Putin after the failures of this war,” he told 9news.com.au.
Then after months of stalemate, Ukraine – supplied with advanced western weaponry – seized the initiative by launching a series of successful counteroffensives.
But despite his military’s mauling and the Russian economy buckling under western sanctions, Sussex said Putin remains committed to continuing the unpopular war.
“Putin has made up his mind that the war goes on … there are strong signs the Russian army could be mustering a force of 300,000 men for a spring offensive.”
Ukrainian military officials have said the offensive could begin as early as February 24, the one year anniversary of the Russian invasion.
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Sussex said a long attritional war is one of the few options offering Putin any hope of staving off defeat.
“Putin is banking on a long war wearing down the Ukraine economy to a point of collapse … and western support waning in the next months,” Sussex said.
Meaningful peace talks appear unlikely as Putin’s reputation would be severely diminished at home if he returned from a costly war without meaningful territorial gains.
But even any modest success in a new offensive is probably too late to save Putin’s leadership in the long term, Sussex said.
The chaotic performance of the Russian armed forces, blame-shifting between generals, and Putin’s highly unpopular move to order a military mobilisation over the past year have been seismic blows to his standing.
They mean Putin will struggle to insulate himself from the failures of the war and his move to shift the blame to subordinates in the military, intelligence agencies and the Russian population could backfire.
“The result has been chaotic spaces where dissent can spread,” Sussex said.
“And that could mean the targets of his blame game will say: ‘We’re sick of this guy, let’s get rid of him.'”
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