The chaotic and barbaric shelling of Ukrainian cities looks like an act of desperation. Rather than pursuing a military purpose, it is rather meant to solve the rapidly internal problem 1/8
First, these attacks are precisely something the radicals were demanding long time ago. Putin was ignoring these demands for quite a while, and now he yielded to them immediately after the blowup of the bridge 2/8
Second, they are preceded by appointment of Surovikin – again, something the radicals were pushing through for a long time. This is not typical of Putin to give in to pressure so evidently – and now these people aren’t even afraid to claim they have forced Putin’s hand 3/8
It shows how dependent Putin has recently become on this hawkish part of the military. More importantly, with this decisions Putin also wholly embraces the radicals’ theory of victory 4/8
And the theory these people nurture is that they key for victory is awe. Basically, you have to scare the opponent to death, and that will be enough for it to surrender 5/8
That’s why what they are celebrating now is not some military achievement (there is none) but rather the suffering of Ukrainians. This theory is wrong in the Ukrainian case, and that is something the hawks are still to learn 6/8
This theory most probably means pushing up the escalation ladder – every new crime will be regarded as insufficiently scary. Putin would probably prefer to control the pace of escalation, for he is more interested in a protracted war and the West losing interest in Ukraine 7/8
However, at this point it is Ukraine who controls the escalation dynamic, Putin is only reacting to it. We are probably heading to a point when there will be no escalatory steps left. This could be the endgame 8/8
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