Free Republic

This war is one that Russia cannot win in any meaningful sense. Putin's foreign military successes around the world after 2008 were all achieved by using small units of elite forces, mercenaries and local militia groups alongside air power. This gave Moscow considerable leverage at low cost during interventions in Georgia, Syria, and twice in Ukraine during 2014, first in illegally annexing Crimea and then in creating self-declared Russian statelets in Luhansk and Donetsk. In every case, Russia moved swiftly and ruthlessly in ways the western world was unable to counter except through graduated sanctions regimes - nothing that could...

Vladimir Putin will seek to nominate his chosen successor this year amid heavy losses on the battlefield, Abbas Gallyamov, his former speechwriter, said Putin's circle no longer see him as a 'guarantor of stability' and are alarmed by the rise of Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the well-armed Wagner private army, which is so far loyal to the Kremlin but could turn on an elite seen as failing in the war, Gallyamov said. They fear being slaughtered with Prigozhin's sledgehammer - the extrajudicial punishment given to his jail convict soldiers who refuse to fight or seek to defect to Ukraine. One...