Is Putin Losing The War In Ukraine?

So, like with any war, you need public support. And what better way to do that than by a public address that claims you’re going to war to free people by killing a whole bunch of people who have deep cultural, economic, and political bonds with Russia? This strategy has massively backfired as the recent protests on the streets of Moscow and the mass exodus of Russian citizens out of Russia have clearly shown.

However, Putin himself (at least publicly) seems robotically unphased by all the tension and turmoil that is gripping a nation he has led for 22 years. And like HAL 9000 in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey, Putin is willing to sacrifice any and all humans to complete a mission that it seems only he believes in anymore.

He would go as far as the slap the nuclear response card firmly on the table causing many political commentators to suggest that he really would go as far as to burn everything down just so he could be king of the ashes. However, European leaders are not so quick to panic as Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called Putin’s announcement of a partial mobilization “a sign of panic” with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz adding that it was “an act of desperation”.