Vladimir Putin’s failed state, a disaster of his own making

COMMENTARY / World

Vladimir Putin’s failed state, a disaster of his own making

Having bet everything on war and conquest, the Russian leader’s regime is now politically bankrupt

The failed assault on Ukraine has put an end to the illusion that Russia is a first rate power, especially since Putin's authoritarian regime has invested so heavily in creating a state that 'exists only for warfare.' | AFP-JIJI

By Anders Aslund
Project Syndicate

Apr 13, 2022

STOCKHOLM – Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine has been exposed as an extraordinary — and extraordinarily brutal — folly.

So immense is his blunder that he may now have rendered Russia a failed state, defined by the Oxford Dictionary as one where the “political or economic system has become so weak that the government is no longer in control.”

That definition already appears to describe Russia’s current condition, and we can expect the war to continue to weaken the Kremlin’s authority. Putin is about to be beaten militarily by Ukraine, and that defeat will signal that Russia is not even a “regional power,” as former U.S. President Barack Obama once dismissively described it. According to the Ukrainians, they have taken out 50 of the 120 Russian battalion tactical groups deployed to Ukraine; and Russia has only 170 such groups in total.