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Two years of war for Russia! It has plunged the country deeper and deeper into darkness

2024-02-24 08:45:56Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX

Few could understand why Vladimir Putin, Russia's calculating leader, would embark on such a dangerous military adventure, especially when the mere threat of a Russian invasion was already paying off.

In June last year, as Russian forces massed near Ukraine, US President Joe Biden met with Putin in a superpower-style summit, describing the US and Russia as "two great powers" who exalt the leader Russian as previous US administrations had sought to downplay Russia's stance.

In the days leading up to the 2022 invasion, Washington offered a "pragmatic assessment" of Moscow's security concerns, signaling openness to compromise.

Raising Russian forces against one of the largest armies in the region seemed uncharacteristically reckless and, therefore, impossible.

However, there were others who rightly saw the invasion as inevitable, better reading the Kremlin's intentions and confidently predicting a quick Russian victory at the hands of Moscow's vastly superior forces.

Two years later, those who doubted the Kremlin's resolve were wrong for the right reasons.

What Moscow still euphemistically calls Special Military Operation has been a bloodbath of catastrophic proportions not seen in Europe for generations. Even conservative estimates put the number of dead and wounded in the hundreds of thousands on each side. Russia's once venerable military has proven unprepared and vulnerable to modern weaponry in the hands of a determined Ukrainian resistance. Even if the war ends tomorrow, it will likely take many years for its strength and numbers to recover.

And the last two years of brutal war have distorted Russia from within as well.

Hundreds of thousands of its citizens have fled the country to avoid conscription. Frustrations with the way the war was being waged provoked an armed uprising in which Wagner's armed mercenaries marched on Moscow, presenting an unprecedented challenge to the Kremlin's authority.

International disregard has made Russia the most sanctioned country in the world. Even President Putin has been indicted for war crimes in The Hague.

And now Putin's most vocal critic – Alexey Navalny – is dead. Amid a wider crackdown on dissent, the country has sunk further into isolation and obscurity.

Take the longer view and the direction of travel seems tragically clear.

In 2004, a leading Russian journalist, Anna Politikovskaya, was assassinated on Putin's birthday. Her daring dispatches from Chechnya struck a chord. Other critics were silenced at home and abroad.

In 2008, Putin was intervening in neighboring Georgia, cutting off pro-Russian regions from the Georgian state. Before the territory of Crimea was annexed by Ukraine in 2014, Russian forces had successfully supported the Syrian regime for years in brutally suppressing that country's rebellion, despite international condemnation.

But February 24, 2022, was a watershed.

It is not just that Putin miscalculated in his ambition to invade Ukraine, although what was meant to be a limited campaign is now an open-ended war.

Rather, his full-scale invasion of Ukraine was the moment when Putin finally abandoned any semblance of cooperation with the West and all pretense that dissent and criticism within this great nation would be tolerated.

There are currently few signs of any change in course.

In fact, two years into his Special Military Operation, Putin is consolidating his grip on power with muted opponents, and the March election will confirm his fifth presidential term.

Privately, many Russians quietly hope that one day there will be a change in course. But few believe it is unlikely now or even soon.


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