Monthly Archives: March 2022

The reaction from the White House was a veritable dousing of cold water on what, hours earlier, seemed like one of the first, sincere potential diplomatic breakthrough weeks into the bloody conflict. At the talks in Turkey, both Ukrainian and Russian sides said moves were being made toward a leaders summit, as Kyiv for the first time signaled a willingness to hold negotiations over territory seized by Moscow. Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said his military planned to fundamentally cut back military activity near the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and another northern city in an effort to increase trust around the peace talks.

But Biden administration officials cautioned that while they had seen a recent reduction in Russian attacks around Kyiv and Chernihiv, violence had continued unabated and even grown elsewhere, particularly in southern and eastern Ukraine. Moreover, the officials said that the pause near Kyiv may be a ruse to resupply troops and that the violence could ramp up at any time.

We need to see what the Russians actually do before we trust solely what theyve said, Kate Bedingfield, the White House communications director, said during Tuesdays daily briefing. We have no reason to believe Moscow has abandoned its push into Kyiv. No one should be fooled, she continued, adding The world should be prepared for a major offensive against other areas of Ukraine.

Its a general sentiment that was echoed in relevant corners of the administration.

Ive not seen anything to suggest that this is moving forward in an effective way because we have not seen signs of real seriousness from Russia, said Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a press conference in Morocco.

Were not ready to buy the argument that this is a Russian withdrawal, top Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said hours later to reporters.

More vitally, even if Russia did silence its guns near the Ukrainian capital, it still very much was conducting an active assault on other regions which would inherently undermine any sort of cease fire, according to the U.S. officials.

Feeding the new push for diplomacy has been the growing recognition that the Russian invasion has badly stalled, with Moscow taking huge manpower and equipment losses. Biden aides, buoyed by Ukraines military campaign to date, nevertheless scoffed at the suggestion that Putin was ending the war, instead believing he likely was temporarily focusing on a more winnable region, the officials said. The Donbas region parts of which have been held by Kremlin-backed separatist forces since 2014 appeared to be a particular target.

Putins campaign has gone so unexpectedly poorly that U.S. officials have begun reviewing their own intelligence assessments to determine how they could have so badly misjudged the strength of the Russian military. Despite pouring billions of dollars into modernizing Russias military, Putins forces have been saddled with poor equipment, communications and morale all leading to, so far, a stalemate against a much smaller and overmatched foe.

To that point, one U.S. official bluntly said: The Russians really fucked this up.

Still, one U.S. official, who like others would only speak about sensitive geopolitical matters on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday that no one should be fooled by Russias announcements and added that the administration believes any movement of Russian forces from around Kyiv is a redeployment, not a withdrawal, and the world should be prepared for a major offensive against other areas of Ukraine.

Michael Kofman, research program director in the Russia Studies Program at the CNA think tank, said that even a retrenchment to focus on the Donbas could still leave Russia with sufficient presence to fix Ukrainian forces around Kyiv.

We should see this as a sign that Russia is revising down its war aims, said Kofman, and expanding options to end this phase of the conflict while spinning it as a victory with domestic audiences.

White House officials stressed that it was encouraged that peace negotiations were occurring. But earlier signals from Moscow about a willingness to negotiate were almost immediately proven to be a ruse, with Russian forces instead only ramping up their assaults. There has been no concrete signs of troop withdrawals back to Russia; the only movement so far has been different deployments within Ukraine.

They have lied about everything else, why should we start believing them now? asked a second U.S. official.

They have lied about everything else, why should we start believing them now?

A U.S. official on Russian leadership

Though some analysts believe a conversation or summit between Biden and Putin may be needed to bring the war to a close, the White House has been unwilling to conduct any direct negotiations. Instead Biden officials have left it to other world leaders, such as French President Emmanuel Macron, to convey messages to and talk with the Russian leader. Macron and Putin had a conversation on Tuesday after Biden and Macron spoke as part of a larger call.

Officials said that a call between Biden and Putin would only be set up if Russia first shows tangible signs of winding down hostilities. The White House offered a conversation before the invasion but revoked it once Russian forces went into Ukraine. Aides made clear Tuesday that a presidential call carries significant diplomatic weight and should be used as a final or near-final step; they did not want to set up a summit only to see Putin ramp up the violence in its aftermath.

Putins ability to withstand the international pressure and heavy economic sanctions placed on his country has left Biden and his allies with limited options. The war to this point has killed thousands, left entire cities ruined and forced the displacement of millions of Ukrainians, but Biden has repeatedly stressed his unwillingness to risk a confrontation with Russia that would escalate into World War III.

U.S. officials theorize that the nod toward peace talks may be a feint to buy time to resupply Russias beleaguered forces. Moreover, a possible Russian move away from Kyiv, even a temporary one, may be a face-saving effort to cover for the extraordinary amount of losses Putins forces have taken. Moscow badly misjudged the strength of the Ukrainian resistance as well as its own might and has lost a huge amount of men and machines.

U.S. officials have warned against growing overconfident amid Russias stalled invasion. Biden, in a secure call Tuesday morning, urged the leaders of France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom to keep the pressure on Moscow and continue sending arms and equipment to Ukraine.

Just back from a trip to Europe to rally the allies, Biden has escalated the rhetoric against Russia, refusing to back down from his off-the-cuff suggestion that Putin should leave power even though he insisted he was making a moral judgment and not calling for regime change.

Ukrainian officials signaled Tuesday that they would be willing to negotiate the status of Crimea the Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow seized in 2014 in talks to be conducted over a period of 15 years. And some military analysts believe Putin may soon pull out some ground forces from hot zones and instead settle in to conduct a lengthy, long-range bombing campaign to shatter Ukrainian cities.

But even that, though devastating to Ukraine, would be a far cry from Moscows early belief that it could topple Kyiv in a matter of days.

Its a huge retreat from Putins initial war aims, said Jeffrey Edmonds, former Russia director on Obamas National Security Council and now adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank. This is a huge defeat to Putins maximalist initial goals. The Russian leadership is trying to salvage a military fiasco.

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Putin on the fritz? U.S. not buying Russia's deescalation talk. - POLITICO

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has promoted Ramzan Kadyrov to lieutenant-general for his role in the invasion of Ukraine, which the Chechen leader is using to showcase his loyalty to Moscow and his own impunity.

This week Kadyrov claimed that a key ally linked to the 2015 murder of the Russian opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov, was injured fighting in the besieged port city of Mariupol.

Ruslan Geremeev was pictured in hospital, where Kadyrov visited him. Earlier videos the Chechen leader posted calling Geremeev a dear brother claimed to show him on the frontlines in Mariupol, including at the city hall.

Nemtsovs family have long insisted that Geremeev was a mastermind of the murder plot. Five Chechen men were found guilty of the killing in 2017, but the trial was denounced by relatives and allies as a cover-up that failed to bring those behind the assassination to justice.

Investigators told the 2017 trial that they visited Geremeevs property in Chechnya but no one opened the door. They also named Geremeevs driver, Ruslan Mukhudinov, as an organiser of the killing and said he offered the suspects millions of roubles for the murder.

Mukhudinov has since fled and investigators said after the verdict that the case against him was ongoing. Geremeev, who is a relative of two Russian MPs, served in the same paramilitary security unit as Zaur Dadaev, a former senior officer convicted of shooting Nemtsov.

The unit has close ties to Kadyrov, though he has never been directly linked to the murder. Geremeevs appearance on the frontlines in Mariupol is a show of both Kadyrovs strength and his allies apparent ability to defy Russian law.

However, the multiple videos shared by Kadyrov are not filmed on the frontline, suggesting the Chechens may have a role with as much responsibility for propaganda as for fighting.

The presence of Kadyrovs men, who have a reputation for extreme brutality, is most likely aimed as much at spreading fear as bolstering numbers in battle.

They may also take on other tasks, with some reportedly assigned to patrol behind frontline forces and shoot deserters. Others have been assigned to interrogations of civilians in the city a grim speciality of Kadyrovs followers, who have a track record of torture and abuse.

A senior commander from one of the eastern Russian-backed breakaway regions, Alexander Khodakovsky, said in a video interview that the Chechens had not been expected to fight on the frontlines.

Instead they were originally brought in for clearing operations in territory Russia seized around Mariupol. He later apologised to Kadyrov for the remarks undermining his fighters military prowess.

For Kadyrov himself, regardless of the role taken on by his troops, the war has offered a chance to showcase his commitment to Putin, the man on whom his own bloodstained authority relies, by sending troops.

To this end he has attempted to mobilise Chechen society behind the war effort, including recruiting at martial arts clubs and recently opening the gates of its prisons to army recruiters, with a group expected to travel to fight in Ukraine with the next rotation, security services said.

But he has also used it to try to boost his own profile as a ruthless fighter, with his men emphasising their loyalty to him rather than to the Russian state. He has a troubled relationship with branches of the Russian security services.

This week he denounced peace talks even as Russia promised to reduce military activity around the capital, Kyiv. We need to finish what we started, Kadyrov said in a statement.

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Putin promotes Chechen leader with ties to murder of Kremlin critic - The Guardian

But the common denominator between Biden and Trump is the word begging. Is this the future we want? As long as were addicted to oil, we are always going to be begging someone, usually a bad guy, to move the price up or down, because we alone are not masters of our own fate.

This has got to stop. Yes, there needs to be a transition phase, during which we will continue to use oil, gas and coal. We cant go cold turkey. But lets vow to double the pace of that transition not double down on fossil fuels.

Nothing would threaten Putin more than that. After all, it was the collapse in global oil prices between 1988 and 1992, triggered by Saudi overproduction, that helped bankrupt the Soviet Union and hasten its collapse. We can create the same effects today by overproducing renewables and overemphasizing energy efficiency.

The best and fastest way to do that, argues Hal Harvey, the C.E.O. of Energy Innovation, a clean energy consultancy, is by increasing clean power standards for electric utilities. That is, require every U.S. power utility to reduce its carbon emissions by shifting to renewables at a rate of 7 to 10 percent a year i.e., faster than ever.

Utopian? Nope. The C.E.O. of American Electric Power, once utterly coal dependent, has now pledged to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, using mostly natural gas as a backup. Thirty-one states have already set steadily rising clean energy standards for their public utilities. Lets go for all 50 now.

At the same time, lets enact a national law that gives every consumer the ability to join this fight. That would be a law eliminating the regulatory red tape around installing rooftop solar systems while giving every household in America a tax rebate to do so, the way Australia has done a country that is now growing its renewable markets faster per capita than China, Europe, Japan and America.

When cars, trucks, buildings, factories and homes are all electrified and your grid is running mostly on renewables presto! we become increasingly free of fossil fuels, and Putin becomes increasingly dollar poor.

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Opinion | How to Defeat Putin and Save the Planet - The New York Times

There is, however, a plausible path to make Putin pay. Following Russias illegal invasion, the United States has worked with foreign partners to freeze sovereign assets of the Russian government, as well as the personal offshore wealth of Putin and his aides and oligarch enablers. This hoard of riches now includes Russian central bank reserves, private bank accounts, real estate and mega-yachts scattered around the world. Collectively, these frozen assets are valued at hundreds of billions of dollars a substantial sum that could be used to assist Ukraine.

Seizing on this possibility, Oleg Ustenko, an economic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and MIT economist Simon Johnson have advocated that the United States and its partners confiscate Russias frozen assets and redistribute them immediately to needy Ukrainians. Other policy analysts have embraced and further fleshed out this idea. These proposals might make good sense from an economic and humanitarian perspective, but they are political and legal non-starters.

Distributing Russian assets to Ukrainians is politically untenable because it would eliminate one of the few tools the international community has to pressure Russia to call off its military offensive. Although asset freezes have done little to deter Putin so far, this does not mean that they cannot contribute to bringing about a negotiated end to the conflict in the future.

Equally important, confiscating Russian assets would violate international law. Asset freezes are what international lawyers call countermeasures temporary coercive acts that are designed to compel other states to comply with their international obligations. International law permits the United States and its allies to freeze Russian assets as a countermeasure only if the assets are preserved so they can be released once Russia resumes compliance with its legal obligations. In contrast, permanently confiscating Russias assets, as Ustenko and Johnson propose, would constitute an illegal expropriation. If the United States and its partners want to send the message that international law is worthy of respect including the prohibition against military aggression, which Russia has so flagrantly violated giving away Russias assets is the wrong move.

Fortunately, there is another way the United States and its partners can leverage Russias frozen wealth to deliver relief to Ukraine: They can refuse to unfreeze these assets until Putin pays reparations. Under international law, Russia is obligated to compensate Ukraine for the harm produced by its illegal war of aggression. There are a variety of ways that Russia could satisfy this obligation. It could negotiate a comprehensive lump-sum settlement. It could work with Ukraine to establish a bilateral tribunal like the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal. It could enlist an international organizations help to establish a claim-settlement body like the U.N. Compensation Commission, which handled civil claims arising from Iraqs unlawful invasion and occupation of Kuwait in the early 1990s. In each of these scenarios, frozen assets could be used to compensate Ukraine.

World leaders do not appear to have considered this option. Biden and his advisers have defended international sanctions solely as measures for curbing Russian aggression. But asset freezes and other sanctions havent dissuaded Putin from laying waste to Ukrainian cities, and it is unlikely that they will convince him to withdraw from the disputed Donbas region, let alone Crimea. Moreover, as soon as Ukraine and Russia reach a deal to end hostilities and resolve their territorial disputes, the deterrence rationale for sanctions will evaporate. If sanctions disappear as soon as the war ends, Russia could evade meaningful accountability.

Shifting the focus of international sanctions to reparations would make them more powerful. The United States and its allies should send a clear message: the more damage Russia causes in Ukraine, the more they will expect Russia to pay in reparations as a precondition for lifting sanctions. Tying sanctions to reparations in this way would provide an incentive for Russia to rein in its indiscriminate missile attacks. It would establish a sound legal justification for the United States and its partners to maintain sanctions after the war ends. And it would establish a powerful mechanism to compel Russia to finance Ukraines reconstruction.

This strategy for procuring war reparations might seem fanciful because it would require Russian cooperation. It is hard to imagine Putin agreeing to provide reparations on a scale that would wipe out the consequences of his illegal war, as required under international law. Indeed, rather than concede that his special military operation in Ukraine violates international law, Putin might prefer to bid farewell to his countrys frozen wealth while demagogically pinning the blame on foreign enemies.

Yet patient perseverance could yield unexpected fruit. While sanctions remain in place, Russia will struggle to attract foreign capital to pay its bills, compromising its financial solvency and stunting its economy. As time passes, Russia will feel increasing pressure to negotiate for sanctions relief, improving the odds that reparations could eventually become a reality. Sooner or later, Putin might be willing to strike a deal on reparations in exchange for normalizing trade relations, lifting travel restrictions and reclaiming some of his countrys frozen assets.

International sanctions have not deterred Putins army from ravaging Ukraine. But if the international community remains patient and united in defending the rule of international law, it could eventually force Putin to pay dearly for his illegal war by compensating Ukraine with cold, hard cash.

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Opinion | Rebuilding Ukraine Will Be Costly. Here's How to Make Putin Pay. - POLITICO

While theUnited States did not stop the Russian invasion of Ukraine,the Biden administration seemed to see it coming in extraordinary detail.

In the weeks leading up to the invasion on February 24, as Russia amassed troops and hardware on its neighbour's borders, senior US officials warned an attack was imminent, despite repeated Kremlin denials.

As Russia menaced Ukraine from afar,even the Ukrainian government at times dismissed the build-up as bluster rather than a precursor to war.

Reporters asked US President Joe Biden why he was so convinced that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had decided to invade Ukraine.

"We have a significant intelligence capability," he responded simply.

Mr Biden also claimed to know exactly what Mr Putin had in the pipeline down to specific dates.

It was as if US intelligence services had tapped into the mind of a foreign leader notorious for guarding his secrets.

So was the US bluffing or did it really know what Russia had planned?

As a former spy master, Mr Putin knows the importance of intelligence and minimising the ability of your enemies, real or perceived, to know your plans.

He reportedly still relies on tactics he learned as a KGB agent.

To this day he does not trust technology, knowing that the United States maintains extraordinary hacking ability in its Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)and National Security Agency (NSA).

"It's said that he very, very rarely uses email and his calls are very selectively used," said Calder Walton, a historian and intelligence expert at the Harvard Kennedy School.

"His worldview is dominated by his previous career as a KGB officer, and synonymous with that is paranoia. So he is a true conspiracy theorist and paranoid."

The widely circulated photos of him sitting at the head of comically long tables to meet with world leaders and his own team is the perfect metaphor for a man trying to keep threats at bay.

Despite those safeguards, however, it appears the United States knew of his invasion plans well in advance and was confident enough to put its assessment on the record.

The US would have been mining a range of sources, according to Mr Walton.

"I'd be confident to say that it is not one single source, but likely a combination: human sources potentially, people close to Putin ...the age-old technique of tradecraft, of espionage, recruiting spies," he said.

But there are other more modern tricks in the current intelligence toolkit, according to Mr Walton.

These include "technical intelligence collection", which often relies on satellite imagery and "open-source intelligence".

The technique draws on the vast amount of data now available from commercial satellites and even social media to establish your enemy's next steps.

There's a long history of espionage between the United States and Russia and its forebear, the Soviet Union.

For much of the Cold War, double agents and undercover spies were operating in both nations.

In 2010, long after the Cold War was declared over, the FBI arrested anetwork of Russian intelligence agents carrying out deep-cover assignments while living seemingly ordinary lives in American suburbs.

But the most recent and impactful example of alleged Russian espionage was the 2016 election.

According to the US intelligence community, Mr Putin ordered an operationtoharmHillary Clinton's campaign, boostDonald Trump's candidacy, and increase social discord in the United States.

The intelligence about Mr Putin's allegedinvolvement wasgiven to the US by a Russian informant,according to Calder Walton.

"The key bit of intelligence saying that it was directly ordered by Putin ... was a human source and that human source was reportedly exfiltrated out of Russia under CIA protection," he said.

Within the FBI, the acronym used to describe the motivation for people to spy for a foreign power is MICE: Money, ideology, coercion and ego.

Trying to seduce people in Moscow could be fraught, Mr Walton said, so it waslikely the US hadtried to access Russian government officials placed in foreign capitals.

But those working for the Kremlin abroad in jobs such as diplomatic postscould also be spying for their motherland.

The US recently expelled a group of Russians working in New York for the United Nations Russian mission.

"There's a longstanding tradition for Russia to use diplomatic cover, particularly at the United Nations, for espionage to recruit foreign agents," Mr Walton said.

"It has to be said that almost certainly Western governments do the same."

While the US knew many details about Russia's plan to start the war, many were surprised by how badly thisinvasion has gone.

Despite heavy investment in its military over a decade,the once feared Russian army's reputation has taken a pummelling.

Instead of the rapid victory many had predicted, it's been stalled by the ferocious resistance of a much smaller country.

That has made intelligence gathering during the war far easier.

Russian units appear to be operating using non-secure communication, allowing Ukrainians to intercept their messages and then pinpoint both units and high-value targets.

Ukraine has managed to target and reportedly kill seven Russian generals in the month-old conflict, a rate of attrition not seen since World War II.

With his troops in trouble, his wealthiest allies sanctioned, and information leaking to his enemies, Vladimir Putin may be getting nervous.

The Russian leader is reportedly conducting an internal purge ofofficersand intelligence personnel, according to the Institute for the Study of War.

"If he fails and looks weak, it's disastrous at home, not just abroad,"Fiona Hill, a former director ofRussian affairs on the US National Security Council, told Meet the Press.

"He's extremely paranoid about this."

Mr Putin, who filled his inner circle with men connected to Russia's intelligence services, may now see them as a potential threat to his leadership.

"There's certainly a history of coups and more importantly, failed coups have always involved Russia's Soviet intelligence services," Mr Walton said.

"The KGB was instrumental in a failed coup in 1991 when they tried to oust Gorbachev, andthe KGB was instrumental in the fall of Khrushchev in the earlier Cold War."

However, Mr Walton said Mr Putin's iron grip on Russia's intelligence services meanta coup against him would be difficult.

"He controls them in a way that even in the Soviet period, Soviet leaders didn't. These are his own personal fiefdoms," he said.

"I'm afraid the history of coups and Russia shows it's unlikely to succeed."

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The US anticipated almost every move Vladimir Putin made in Ukraine. This is how they probably did it - ABC News

LONDON

Russian President Vladimir Putins ambitions and his ruthless style of achieving them in his invasion of Ukraine can be traced at least in part to a handful of conservative Russian thinkers who, like him, came to prominence in a post-Soviet nation struggling to find its identity, and who have helped mold his ideology.

You cannot get inside Putins head at this very moment, said Marlene Laruelle, a historian of Russia and political scientist at George Washington University. But there is a history of advisors, formal and informal, and thinking that has surrounded him over the years that you can look at to understand his perspective.

In justifying the war he launched in late February by blaming a decadent West for attempting to chip away at Russian identity, borders and security, Putin echoed key ideas of Eurasianism, a 20th-century political theory that modern-day followers describe as saying Russia is neither part of Europe nor Asia and is the enemy of the U.S.-led Atlantic world.

Long an imperial people, Russians can lead a world empire, according to writings of one of the most prominent proponents of Eurasianism, Alexander Dugin, 60, whom some refer to as Putins Rasputin.

Dugin, a former professor at Moscow State University, is not known to regularly meet or speak with Putin or his inner circle, though he has given high praise of the Russian leader. Many of his far-right, antisemitic writings are too extreme for even the Kremlin to publicly embrace. But when he failed to make significant formal political inroads after the Soviet Unions fall, Dugin successfully set his eyes on gaining influence among policymakers, the military and Russian intelligence, all of whom have Putins ear.

His ideas, developed over dozens of books and prolific appearances in the Russian and Western media, appear to match Putins current frame of mind as the Russian leader continues his onslaught on neighboring Ukraine, leaving cities in rubble, thousands of civilians dead and millions fleeing, even as his ground forces remain stalled.

Alexander Dugin sits for a TV interview in Moscow in March 2016.

(Francesca Ebel / Associated Press)

The writers 1997 treatise, The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia, at times reads like an overview of recent Russian history as expressed by Putin today. Ukraine, it says, is a state that has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness. It represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics.

Such notions have also been echoed of late by voices of the American far right.

Ukraine is kind of a concept. Its not even a country, said former Trump advisor Stephen K. Bannon on Feb. 24, the day Putin launched his invasion. He spoke about it on his podcast, Bannons War Room. In 2018, Dugin and Bannon met in Rome, and were reported to have spent several hours together.

Dugin, whose book has become common reading in the Russian military, has advocated a new Russian empire from Dublin to Vladivostok.

He sees technology as promoting a false sense of individualism and he has dismissed many modern-day European governments as extensions of America that encroach on Russia.

Putin struck similar chords in his pre-war speech last month when he said the U.S. was waging a proxy war on Russian freedom that had crossed the red line. The Ukrainian government was illegitimate, stocked with neo-Nazis and was oppressing Russians, Putin said, in the name of an American empire of lies.

Ukrainian police and soldiers stand ready with an artillery unit after Russian bombardment destroyed a building in the Moskovskyi district of Kharkiv, Ukraine, on March 25.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Benjamin Young, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth Universitys Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, describes Dugin as a man whose radical ideas permeate the intellectual ecosystem of Russian conservatism. His predictions have also been frighteningly correct about the posture of post-Cold War Russia.

From Putins militant opposition to globalism to the invasion of Ukraine, his theories align with much of the Kremlins actions.

Like Putin, Young said, Dugin wants a return to a more conservative and religious world order that fuses the Orthodox Church and state. He wants Eastern Europe to return to the Moscow-led Orthodox Church.

Putin has enlisted Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, in the war effort, with Kirill recently praising the president and calling military service in the war a manifestation of evangelical love for neighbors.

Dugin, who in a 2008 interview with The Times said friendly U.S. relations with former Soviet states were a declaration of psychological, geopolitical, economic and open war, is not the only man whose ideas circulate among Putin and his circle.

Laruelle of George Washington University describes the Russian president as a person without one single ideological source.

There are multiple people all of whom are mediated by the circle around Putin, she said, that united together to support this disastrous invasion.

Putin himself last year named three influences during an address to the Valdai Club, a prominent Moscow think tank, Laruelle noted. They were Nikolai Berdyaev, a well-known Russian religious philosopher; Lev Gumilev, an eccentric Soviet-era ethnologist; and Ivan Ilyin, a 20th-century migr who was a fan of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler.

Putin has been reported to assign homework to regional governors to read the works of Gumilev and Ilyin. He has been relatively mum on Berdyaev, who like others has lauded Russia as having a unique role in history.

The Russian leader has cited Gumilevs theory of passionarity, which Laruelle described as a living force specific to each people group made up of bio-cosmic energy and inner force. Speaking a little over a year ago, Putin said he believe[s] in passionarity. Russia has not reached its peak. We are on the march, on the march of development. We have an infinite genetic code. It is based on the mixing of blood.

Ilyin has also figured prominently in Putins background. In 2006, Michigan State University, which held Ilyins papers and manuscripts, said it would return them to Russia via one of Putins personal representatives.

Putins speeches are inspired by Ilyins idea of Ukraine construction by opponents of Russia, Laruelle said.

In his writings, Ilyin described Russia as a living organism of nature and the soul that cannot be divided, only dissected. His references to Ukraine were always in quotation marks because it was seen as part of the Russian organism.

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The roots of Putin's ultranationalism and war on Ukraine - Los Angeles Times

You can feel it happening now. People are starting to lose interest. Ukraine slips off the main headlines every so often for the Chancellors Spring Statement, or the Partygate fines. Itll slip off again soon, then more regularly. And eventually, a few months from now, itll be a news-in-brief, a few quick paragraphs detailing the who-where-when of Russias latest atrocity, with a body count tacked on the end.

Were a month in, and journalists are already starting to report that Ukrainian stories are getting less views, that theyre starting to lose reader interest. People are beginning to switch off.

You can see it in how the story is covered, as well as the priority its given. Our standard tribal enmities are slowly seeping back into the debate. That brief moment of shared moral outrage is fading away.

Its not thuggish Vladimir Putin who is losing his marbles but doddery Joe Biden, a recent Daily Mail comment headline read. Bidens great crime was to say: For Gods sake, this man cannot remain in power. It jumbled up the White Houses strategic approach, which is to deny a wish for regime change, but it had the immense advantage of being simultaneously obvious and correct. Bidens reward for this most minor of gaffes was to be roasted for 24-hours of the news cycle.

Boris Johnson is playing a similar game using the invasion as just another stick to beat his political opponents with. At the Tory spring conference earlier this month he said. Do we want [Labour] running up the white flag? Do you see them standing up to Putins blackmail? Its clearly an attack line hes been developing for the local elections. Last night he told Tory MPs: It is impossible to imagine a Labour defence minister arming Ukraine in the way this Conservative government has.

This is the reward Keir Starmer gets for offering the Conservatives conditional support for their Ukraine response to have it thrown back at him in the most venal and fictitious way imaginable. But it is also a sign that the old formulations are coming back. Were slumping back from unity to division, from emergency to day-to-day political knockabout.

Putin knows it. Hes been exploiting Western division from the very beginning. He is a master at plugging into our tribal disposition and worsening it.

The most shared Russian disinformation post on US Facebook between 2015 and 2017 was an image of the Bugs Bunny adversary Yosemite Sam, with guns drawn and a confederate flag behind him. The caption read: I was banned from television for being too violent. Like and share if you grew up watching me on television, have a gun, and havent shot or killed anyone.

The most liked Russian disinformation post on Instagram was an image of eight female legs with different skin tones, starting with white and ending with black. All the tones are nude, it said. Get over it. It was hashtagged #blackandproud.

The first post was aimed at conservatives, the second at progressives. But in each case, the desired outcome was the same: worsening tribal division. Focusing debate on cultural wedge issues. Fuelling the culture war fire.

Now hes doing it again. Recently they cancelled the childrens writer [JK] Rowling because she fell out of favour with fans of so-called gender freedoms, Putin said last week. It was a trap so obvious a child could see it, but of course, that did not stop the massed warriors on both sides of the gender wars using it for their online squabbles getting played like puppets by the Russian tyrant. And every second they did that was another second the West fought itself rather than the real threat.

You can feel the pace of anti-Putin sanctions grinding to a halt now. Most of the top five Russian banks are still operating on the Swift messaging system, including Sberbank by distance the countrys largest. Russian energy is still being bought by Europe. British sanctions remain middling and half-effective. And yet there is little talk anymore of how we ratchet up to the next stage of punishment. The momentum is being lost.

Yesterday, Russia announced that it was moving its focus from Kyiv to the eastern Donbas region. Weve no idea if that is true. Nearly everything the Russian state says is a lie. But it is perfectly possible that we are now seeing the early stages of a recalibration away from regime change, which is proving impossible, and towards the maximisation of territory which can be demanded as part of a peace process.

And the truth is, many Western commentators will be perfectly susceptible to that objective. You can already see hints of it now. If Putin claims and retains Luhansk and Donetsk the Donbas and allows Ukraine to get on with its life I could live with that, Rachel Johnson said on LBC this week.

Its of no consequence at all what Western commentators could live with in regards to Ukraine. Our feelings are not relevant. If the Ukrainians can accept something, we should too. If they cannot, we must not.

Their autonomy has been talked over and ignored throughout this episode, by Putin himself and his witless enablers on right and left. Now you can see mainstream commentators starting to do the same, as they grow tired of the story.

Cant Ukrainians just accept the loss of a bit of territory? Wont they just give way a bit, so things can be brought to an end? And once you start thinking that way, it becomes possible to actually become quite frustrated with Ukrainians for their recalcitrance.

This is how it starts: with us getting bored. And as we get bored, we retreat back into our usual division and tribal bickering, to our oh-so-sensible assessments of the concessions Ukraine should make and our sluggish initiatives on sanctions.

This is a moment of profound danger. Our attention exhaustion provides hope to Putin and a grave threat to Ukraine.

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Ukraine fatigue is setting in, just as Putin hoped it would - iNews