Channeling the imperialist rhetoric of his security chief, Nikolai Patrushev, Russian President Vladimir Putin railed against the West on Friday.
He did so while formalizing the annexation of four more Ukrainian territories at a Kremlin ceremony. In response, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky offered his own escalation, announcing he would attempt to fast-track Ukraine’s membership in NATO. Zelensky added that he would no longer consider negotiating with Russia as long as Putin remains president. This hardening of positions means that the war in Ukraine will almost certainly escalate before any durable peace is possible.
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Putin and Zelensky have separate reasons for their increasingly hawkish stances.
Zelensky is understandably infuriated by Russia’s brazen theft of Ukrainian territory. But he also sees the battlefield situation evolving in his favor. Legions of new draftees won’t much matter — Russia will soon lack the ability to conduct major offensives. Zelensky wants to bring Russia to its knees in Ukraine before he offers any concessions of his own.
To be sure, Zelensky exaggerates the strength of his position. Ukraine is not joining NATO anytime soon because current NATO members are unwilling to go to war with Russia over Ukraine. That may change if Putin starts nuking Ukraine, but it may not. Regardless, Zelensky’s refusal of talks while Putin remains in power is an error of judgment. Putin won’t live forever, but his position is stable, at least for the moment. As Russia continues to lose in Ukraine, Putin will have increased incentive to engage in negotiations favorable to Kyiv. By closing that door, Zelensky makes Putin’s nuclear escalation more likely. The explosions targeting the Nord Stream I and II pipelines this week are likely indications of Putin’s new openness to roll the metaphorical dice.
Still, in stark contrast with the opulent setting and hyperbolic confidence he presented on Friday, Putin is under unprecedented pressure. He has utterly botched what was supposed to be a short, sharp, and successful February invasion of Ukraine and ensuing abortion of Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Today, Putin’s demoralized and badly equipped conventional forces are in fragile holding positions or outright retreat. Much like Hitler during the Second World War, Putin appears unwilling to allow sensible retreats. Making matters worse, the Russians don’t want to be the ones to replace those who have died on the front lines. At least since 1917, Russians have rarely been kind to leaders who match failing wars abroad to declining stability at home. Putin has no easy way out, barring a dramatic retreat or an extreme escalation. Putin’s annexation announcement is thus designed to deter Ukraine and its Western supporters from operations to recover those territories. Putin suggests that if Russian units are forced to retreat from these areas, he will even use nuclear weapons to defend them.
Hence the former KGB officer’s warning on Friday that “the United States is the only country in the world to have used nuclear weapons, twice, destroying the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By the way, they set a precedent … We will protect our land with all the forces and means at our disposal.”
Advancing from a hostile narrative in his other recent speeches, there was an unusually bitter tone to Putin’s words. The American alliance, he said, “do not wish us freedom, but they want to see us as a colony. They do not want equal cooperation, but robbery. They want to see us not as a free society, but as a crowd of soulless slaves.” With not terribly subtle innuendo, Putin decried American allies who support its foreign policy objectives. “Like a slave,” he said, they “silently and meekly swallow this rudeness.”
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This may be a significant moment in Russia’s strategy toward the U.S. and the West more broadly. Putin appears to have decided that he has no other option but to escalate. Considering Zelensky senses his own victory, the next few weeks could be very interesting.
