Staggering news over the last 24 hours from Putin on the Russian war in Ukraine.
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Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here. I wanted to talk to you for a couple of minutes about the staggering news that's come out over the last 24 hours from President Putin on the Russian war in Ukraine. He gave a big speech announcing, among other things, referenda for annexation of Ukrainian territory into Russia, a mobilization of Russian civilians to fight in the Ukrainian war, and threatening even nuclear strikes against those that decide to come against attack Russian territory.
I want to take all of this in order to talk about what it means for you briefly. First of all, very important point that Putin has been trying to avoid taking these measures for months now. Remember, it's a special military operation according to Putin. It's not a war. You can get up to 15 years in prison in Russia if you call it a war. He's not been performing well on the ground militarily. They sent in 190,000 troops to begin with back in February. They tried to take Kyiv. They failed. They tried to overthrow Zelensky. They failed. They lost a lot of territory. They then narrowed the scope of military operations to the land bridge from Russia into Crimea and also the extended Donbas.
But they've had major counteroffensives from a Ukraine that has fought courageously and has been strongly supported by the United States and all of NATO. And as a consequence, finally Putin said, "Okay." He's bitten the bullet. And he has indeed ordered this mobilization. We've had well over 1,000 arrests in the last 24 hours in Russia from people that are deeply upset about this mobilization, about how badly the war is going. Russian state media has indeed been honest with the Russian people about the fact they've lost a lot of territory recently. It's the first time we've seen that from Russia's propaganda institutions.
And of course, the international community is angry. And here we're not just talking about the United States and Russia's committed adversaries, but even countries like India and China and Kazakhstan who really think this war is horrible, not just for Russia but for the global order, for energy prices, for food prices, for knock-on relations, for those that are friendly with Russia. Publicly last week, they were very cautious in trying to tell Putin that things are not going well and they really would like to see an end to the war. Privately, they've been much more direct. I've met with delegations from Kazakhstan and India just over the last couple of days, including the president of Kazakhstan, and absolutely the private messages that have been delivered to Putin have been much more sharp than the ones that you've seen on television.
So look, he is increasingly isolated. He's increasingly a rogue on the global stage. But in response to all of that pushback, both from enemies and from friends, the response from Putin has been, "No I'm escalating. I'm doubling down."
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1 окт 2024
