At last some solid information about how Putin planned to invade Ukraine and what he expected to happen

A very interesting article in the FT confirms what we all assumed. A number of confidantes of President Vladimir Putin and former senior officials have told the FT that they are privately opposed to the war in Ukraine. I imagine that they all are. Like most wars, it is not just a crime but a blunder. 

It's the result of a series of terrible blunders by Vladimir Putin and by others. 

The Americans and Ukrainians also blundered very badly in the way they handled this dangerous man of blood. This does not reduce his personal responsibility for the war.

"It's really a unique war in world history, when all the elite is against it," said one former senior official to the FT.

Putin trusted only a tiny group with his plans for invasion. Even the  foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, only learnt about it hours before it happened.

'Later that day, several dozen oligarchs gathered at the Kremlin for a meeting arranged only the day before, aware that the invasion would trigger western sanctions that could destroy their empires. “Everyone was completely losing it,” says a person who attended the event. While they waited, one of the oligarchs spied Lavrov exiting another meeting and pressed him for an explanation about why Putin had decided to invade. Lavrov had no answer: the officials he was there to see in the Kremlin had known less about it than he did. Stunned, the oligarch asked Lavrov how Putin could have planned such an enormous invasion in such a tiny circle — so much so that most of the senior officials at the Kremlin, Russia’s economic cabinet and its business elite had not believed it was even possible. “He has three advisers,” Lavrov replied, according to the oligarch. “Ivan the Terrible. Peter the Great. And Catherine the Great.” Under Putin’s invasion plan, Russia’s troops were to seize Kyiv within a matter of days in a brilliant, comparatively bloodless blitzkrieg. Instead, the war has proved to be a quagmire of historic proportions for Russia.



'“....The idea was never for hundreds of thousands of people to die. It’s all gone horribly wrong,” a former senior Russian official says. With the initial plan in tatters, Putin is searching for new rationales to justify the war effort, insisting he had no choice but to pursue the invasion by any means necessary, current and former officials say. “He tells people close to him, ‘It turns out we were completely unprepared. The army is a mess. Our industry is a mess. But it’s good that we found out about it this way, rather than when Nato invades us,’” the former official adds.


'....One of Zelenskyy’s early moves was to curb the influence of Viktor Medvedchuk, a close friend of Putin’s who headed the largest opposition party in parliament. Whereas former president Petro Poroshenko had used Medvedchuk as a crucial go-between with Moscow, Zelenskyy’s team sought other intermediaries in the belief that his influence on Putin had begun to wane. But as Putin began drawing up plans for a possible invasion, Medvedchuk insisted that Ukrainians would greet Russia’s forces with open arms. One part of the plan involved Viktor Yanukovych, a former president who has been in Russian exile since fleeing the 2014 revolution against him. He was to deliver a video message conferring legitimacy on Medvedchuk — and anointing him to rule Ukraine with Russia’s backing. The vision was starkly at odds with political realities in Ukraine, where the pro-Russian minority that Medvedchuk represented was vastly outnumbered by those who despised him for his ties to Moscow. But it proved seductive for Putin, who authorised payments through Medvedchuk’s party to pay off local collaborators.


'The invasion began to unravel almost immediately after Putin set it into motion. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff, had drawn up a plan to seize the Hostomel airfield outside Kyiv, giving Russian elite paratrooper squadrons a platform from which to attack Zelenskyy’s government headquarters. Some of Medvedchuk’s collaborators worked as spotters for the advancing Russian forces, painting markings on buildings and highways to direct the invaders to key locations. Others joined in the attack on the government quarter. In southern Ukraine, they helped Russia capture a large swath of territory including Kherson with little to no resistance.


'Most of Medvedchuk’s network, however, simply took the money and ran, refusing to join in the invasion — or went straight to Ukrainian authorities and warned them of the instructions they had been given, according to a senior Ukrainian official and former US and Russian officials.'

The New York Times, in a pull-out in December that I blogged about, interviewed another man whom it said Putin would have made Ukrainian president, Oleg Tsaryov. 

What happens next?

It seems to me that Russia cannot win this war and Ukraine is not going to get back much of the territory Russia now occupies. I suspect that the EU and US see this war in terms of the accepted understanding of the Second World War and think a real peace cannot come while Putin remains in office. 

They see an analogy with the requirement for unconditional surrender by Germany and Japan. 

All Hitler analogies are misleading, of course. Even the general public's understanding of the origins of the Second World War is badly wrong.

I think that Viktor Orban is right in calling for a ceasefire. I hope but do not expect it will happen and hardens into a solution, as armistices did in Korea and Kashmir, but as they did not do in Vietman or, so far, Palestine. 

Tom McTugh in Unherd writes that he has spoken to senior British officials and thinks London, Berlin and Paris hope for a solution that enables a viable Ukraine to continue and to trade. That's sensible. I suspect that the Western public underestimates the Russian army, though no-one knows how strong it will prove.

'The fear in London and Paris is that Gerasimov’s appointment, combined with Putin’s mobilisation, will allow Russia to bring to bear its two most important advantages: numbers and the ability to escalate. Over time, Russia’s numerical supremacy will begin to show on the battlefield. To some extent, the effect has already been felt. Ukraine is already being forced to sacrifice its “good” soldiers for Russia’s “bad” ones — conscripts and convicts — who the Kremlin has no qualms about sending into the meat grinder. The second advantage is escalatory dominance. In short, Russia can bomb Ukraine in a way Ukraine cannot bomb Russia. As long as this remains the case, Ukraine cannot emerge as a free state.'

The good news is that most defence analysts to whom Mr McTugh has spoken think Russia cannot overrun the whole of Ukraine.

Many analysts whom I read think Ukraine can see off the coming Russian offensive. The wish is father to the thought, I suspect.

Unfortunately what I think may well happen is endless war. 

If Ukraine escapes this then the next best thing is a new cold war. Russia is not a threat to the countries of the European Union, in my view, but then I didn't think she would invade the Ukraine. 

The original cold war achieved nothing against the Communist threat and another one would be completely pointless. 

As Gibbon said, history is the catalogue of the crimes and follies of mankind. It always was and always will be.