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Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is his biggest mistake and weakens Russia

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Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a concert marking the eighth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea at the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow on March 18, 2022.

Mikhail Klimentyev | Afp | Getty Images

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been in power for more than two decades and during that time has carefully cultivated an image of himself as a tough, strongman leader, fighting for Russia’s interests and reinstating the country as a geopolitical and economic superpower.

With his decision to invade neighboring Ukraine, however, analysts say Putin has made the biggest mistake of his political career and has weakened Russia for years to come.

“Everything he has done up to this point [conferred] reputational damage to Russia, but it also enhanced power. And he just kept going and kept going and kept going,” Kurt Volker, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, told CNBC.

“But now he has actually dramatically weakened Russia, in every respect,” he said, adding that he could not think of anything that Putin has done in his political career that’s comparable.

Global leaders are gathering in Europe on Thursday to discuss the war in Ukraine and how to help the country survive Russia’s onslaught. An extraordinary NATO summit is taking place in Brussels, as well as meetings of EU leaders and the Group of Seven (G-7).

NATO is expected to commit to “major increases” in troop numbers along its eastern flank as well as more arms and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine, although the military alliance has been reluctant to go further, fearing a direct confrontation with nuclear power Russia.

Speaking to CNBC Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told CNBC: “President Putin has made a big mistake and that is to launch a war, to wage a war, against an independent sovereign nation.”

“He has underestimated the strength of the Ukrainian people, the bravery of the Ukrainian people and armed forces,” he told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble Thursday.

NATO’s plans to step up support for Ukraine and deployments in eastern Europe would allow it to respond to “any threat, any challenge, to our security.”

War crimes

In a statement, Blinken compared the destruction in Mariupol to similar Russian campaigns against Grozny in the Second Chechen War and Aleppo during the Syrian civil war.

“Russia’s forces have destroyed apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, critical infrastructure, civilian vehicles, shopping centers, and ambulances, leaving thousands of innocent civilians killed or wounded,” he said. 

Russia has repeatedly said it does not target civilian infrastructure, despite much evidence to the contrary. CNBC has contacted the Kremlin for a response to the U.S.’ accusation that Russia has committed war crimes and is awaiting a response.

Growth wiped out

Putin unrepentant

Despite making limited progress in his invasion so far, Putin appears undeterred.

Russian forces are now believed to be conducting a period of reorganization before resuming large-scale offensive operations on and around Kyiv.

Taras Kuzio, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, wrote in an article for the Atlantic Council on Tuesday that it is “increasingly obvious that Russian President Vladimir Putin has badly miscalculated.”

‘He appears to have sincerely believed Kremlin propaganda fairytales about the weakness of the Ukrainian military and the readiness of ordinary Ukrainians to welcome his invading troops with cakes and flowers,” Kuzio said, stating that Putin had drunk the Kremlin “kool-aid.”

In addition, Putin seems to have been unprepared for the ferocity of the international response or for the scale of domestic opposition to his invasion, Kuzio noted. “Thanks to these catastrophic miscalculations, Putin now finds himself with no good options to end a war that is threatening to accelerate Russia’s geopolitical decline as a great power.”

Russia has few friends left on the global stage, with the invasion almost universally condemned. Even Russia’s ally China appears uneasy about the potentially prolonged conflict in Ukraine and its impact on the global economy.

At a UN General Assembly in early March, 141 countries adopted a resolution demanding that Russia immediately end its military operations in Ukraine. Only a handful of countries — a rogue’s gallery of Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria, all of which are run by dictators — supporting Russia’s invasion. Russia’s allies Cuba, Nicaragua and China abstained in the vote.

Is Russia over?

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