Don’t write off Putin’s deluge of lies
Vladimir Putin fancies his chances now. Resuming the traditional end-of-year press conference, shelved last year due to the Ukraine war, the old cockiness had returned.
After the grotesque blunder of invading a neighbouring country, the international opprobrium, and the rebellion by now deceased mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, Putin has used the power of his klepto-fascist police state to survive – and even prosper.
The press conference was a four-hour ego massage that allowed Putin, 71, to pontificate on everything under the sun, and respond to questions from the public, and even a few Western journalists. He made every effort to sound like a leader in control of events ahead of next year’s staged election in which it is assumed he will be returned to power for a fifth term in office.
Putin said there would be no peace in Ukraine until the Kremlin realised its goals, which remain unchanged after nearly two years of fighting. “Victory will be ours,” he said.
He even gave some rare details on what Moscow calls its “special military operation” – the same operation in which Russia’s crack troops were supposed to have been in and out of Kyiv in a week to replace the Zelensky government with pro-Kremlin stooges.
Predictions of a Russia collapse have been wide of the mark, however. Ukraine has not been able to push Russian troops out of seized territory in the east of the country.
But Putin’s confidence on Thursday may have resulted in a blunder, when during his rambling, some analysts think he inadvertently revealed that more than 300,000 Russians have died in his Ukraine invasion – in stark contrast to the 6,000 troop deaths claimed by the Kremlin.
Putin suggested that 244,000 Russians had been mobilised, and said that another 486,000 had volunteered to fight, before claiming that 617,000 Russians were currently fighting in Ukraine.
According to military analyst Yan Matveyev, an additional 250,000 Russian soldiers were involved in the first stages of the invasion in the six months before the partial mobilisation of September 2022.
If you do the arithmetic, “Putin literally admitted irretrievable losses in the amount of 363,000 people,” Mr Matveyev said.
The 363,000 death toll aligns more closely with US estimates that were declassified earlier this week, suggesting Russia had suffered 315,000 dead and injured troops in Ukraine.
The “Darth Putin” satirical feed on X , formerly Twitter, suggested what the Russian dictator should really have declared at Thursday’s stage event: “Day 659 of my 3 day war. I am losing more soldiers every 5 days than the USA lost in Afghanistan in 20 years. I remain a master strategist.”
But even a PR blunder of this magnitude, if it is confirmed, is unlikely to faze the Russian despot for long, given his control of a state media that has often appeared more gung-ho about the war on Ukraine than the Kremlin itself.
Dr Christopher Tuck, a reader in strategic studies at King’s College London, thought Putin’s comments were a mistake, but noted: “The constituency that matters for Putin is the domestic one, and the impact of this information in Russia is likely to be minimal: those in the elite already know; and for the wider public, information is washed through the Kremlin propaganda machine.”
Despite a deluge of friendly questions from the public, Putin didn’t have it all his own way, as one question on the screen behind the Russian leader asked: ‘Why is your reality at odds with ours?” Vera Ageva, a Russin political scientist, based in Paris, said the Kremlin was “so disconnected from reality” it probably hadn’t anticipated off–message questions or remarks from the public.
In more good news for Putin this week, the Republican-dominated US Congress failed to pass a new Ukraine package worth $60bn ahead of the Christmas recess, despite a personal appearance in Washington by Volodymyr Zelensky.
European backers of Ukraine fear the far-right leader of Hungary, Viktor Orban, could veto the latest EU aid and arms package to Ukraine, worth €78bn.
“They’re getting everything as freebies,” Putin told the news conference, referring to Western arms deliveries to Ukraine. “But these freebies can run out at some point, and it looks like they’re already starting to run out.”
Putin went on to mock the West. “As for the ‘rules-based order’, there are in fact no such rules,” he said. “They change every day in line with politics and the short-term interests of those who talk about [such an order].”
He made sure of trumpeting his close ties with the world’s second most powerful nation, China. “We know and I will simply repeat this, I must repeat this, the level of our ties with China is at an all-time high,” he said.
Putin’s belief that Chinese dictator Xi Jinping will turn out to be more than a fair-weather friend might yet be revealed as another delusion. And so hopefully, will his dream of re-building the empire of Peter the Great.
But to ensure they remain delusions, the West has to stand firm with Ukraine to discourage further Russian land grabs. And right now, Putin thinks he can see the cracks appearing in Western resolve.
