This world is more dangerous with a wounded Putin

It was certainly not the 70th birthday event Russian President Vladimir Putin would have wanted. Just a day after celebrating his milestone birthday, a truck bomb explosion crippled the heavily guarded 19-kilometre Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea to the Russian mainland.

The bridge was deeply symbolic for Putin as a pillar of his disputed claim to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. The Russian leader presided over its opening in 2018, personally driving a truck across the expanse. It also happens to be vital to sustaining Russia’s military operations in southern Ukraine.

Flame and smoke rise from the Kerch bridge, linking Crimea to the Russian mainland.Credit:AP

While it may be a humiliating setback for Russia, it is just the latest in a string of defeats Putin’s military has suffered. After the war appeared to bog down in a stalemate, Ukraine has made significant gains in the east in a flurry of attacks before winter sets in, including retaking thousands of square kilometres of territory and strategic cities. Ukraine is now pushing further into Russian-held territory in the south.

In a sign of the war’s progress, according to some reports, Ukrainian troops have described their Russian counterparts as being in a panic, with demoralised soldiers surrendering and abandoning equipment in growing numbers.

For Putin, who was only months ago considered one of the most formidable and strategically cunning leaders on the global stage, the lamentable performance of his military in Ukraine has left him not only facing fierce criticism from the West but growing frustration from within Russia about his performance.

While few internal critics are willing to criticise Putin directly – that is a one-way street to imprisonment as Russia’s liberal opposition has found – hardline nationalists are instead condemning the Russian military leadership as a way to voice their frustration.

In recent days, the head of a Russian parliamentary defence committee, Andrei Kartapolov, attacked the military for covering up bad news from the front and Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of a Moscow proxy administration in southern Ukraine, denounced Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu’s performance as being so poor that any real officer would kill himself.

It was a striking attack on such a close ally of Putin, with Shoigu having served in Russia’s leadership team since Putin became president in 1999. The two are known for taking hunting and fishing trips together.

For Putin, this is uncharted territory. While there have been sporadic public protests in the past, never has the Russian leader faced such widespread denunciation over his tactical decision-making. He is a man who has built his authoritarian, strongman reputation on his willingness to squash all opposition, but without some signs of success on the battlefield that will be difficult. And he does not have the option of conceding defeat in Ukraine without risking his own downfall.

This leaves him with few options but to double down militarily in a bid to stave off further humiliation. At just about every turning point since the war began, Putin has reacted to military failures with ever further escalation: calling up untrained recruits, conducting more indiscriminate attacks on cities, reducing gas flows and threatening to use nuclear weapons.

There is a reason US President Joe Biden has declared the world is facing its biggest nuclear threat since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Make no mistake, this is a dangerous time. A weakened Putin does not make the world a safer place and few consider him being banished from power a real possibility. Putin’s threats must be considered real. The consequences of not taking him seriously could be catastrophic.

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