The cornered Bear

How the war in Ukraine just turned really bad for Russia

It should have taken 3 days.

3 days for the self-proclaimed strongest military in the world to roll into a country it had already invaded and occupied areas within only 8 years before. The armoured vehicles even carrying victory paraphernalia such as flags and banners ready to display in the captured nation’s capital, Kyiv.

Except it didn’t work out that way.

It’s the 4-year ‘anniversary’ of the second Russian invasion of Ukraine. 4 years. That’s 4 years of constant war and attrition, particularly on the civilian population of Ukraine. When Russia began to realise that it was not going to win militarily, the targeting of energy infrastructure and civilian population zones began. An attempt to degrade Ukraine’s living conditions and force their government to concede defeat.

Except it didn’t work out that way.

The Ukrainians were far more resilient than most, even in the West, gave them credit for. Not only that, but they began to fight fire with fire, striking Russian refineries and gas installations deep inside Russia. This caused instant economic hurt for Russia which, as a petrostate reliant on exports of its petrochemicals, it cannot endure for even the shortest period of time. With 2026 planned and budgeted on an anticipated price for Russian oil that has now dropped, The Kremlin knows it is in deep trouble. It has already raided the social security budget to help offset the cost of the war but that’s a one trick pony; the money has gone and not been replaced. For the first time in recent history, both banks and business leaders in Russia are starting to speak openly about a financial catastrophe that is already underway. When you consider that openly criticising the government usually leads to a short trip out of a ten storey window, things must be very serious for these people to risk their statements.

The Kremlin has also ceased bonus payments to its soldiers fighting in Ukraine. The one incentive which motivated young men from rural provinces to volunteer for the chance of a small sum of money with which to help their families. Worse than that however, and a more telling sign of the economic pain it is suffering, Russia has also stopped the death benefit paid to families and partners of the soldiers who died fighting in Ukraine.

The impact of this was immediate and a public relations headache for the government. Widows and mothers posting on social media about the government’s betrayal. Public marches covered by independent bloggers and state media highlighting the scale of the problem. The Kremlin responded by issuing a directive to military commanders that families were no longer to be notified, that bodies could be left in situ rather than being recovered for burial. That mass casualty events should be cleaned up before they could be filmed and the dead Russian soldiers buried in a mass grave.

CSIS, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, assesses Russian battlefield casualties in Ukraine to be around 1.2 million. This also has a massive impact on The Kremlin’s war machine. The meat grinder of Ukraine requires constant feeding and Russia is running out of soldiers with fewer mobilisations occurring and fewer troops available. To counter this, they have come up with some rather . . . creative solutions.

Last year, a large group of men from India departed for Belarus after responding to a recruitment advert seeking individuals interested in becoming plumbers, electricians, and engineers. The recruitment company in Delhi arranged all the visas, paperwork, and transport for the hundreds of men who replied to the advertisements on social media. Some of the men found it odd that, on reaching the stopover in Russia, their passports and mobile phones were taken but accepted the ‘security protocol’ explanation given by their Russian hosts. That explanation was soon exposed as the lie it was when the men were driven to a military installation, processed into the army, beaten and abused, given a short training course and told they were being sent to fight in Ukraine. And if they refused or tried to run away, they would be shot by their officers as deserters.

The men’s experiences of the front line paint a brutal picture of an army already in decline and snowballing downhill really fast. Command and control enforced by threat of execution. Troops forced at gunpoint to run at heavily defended Ukrainian positions. Constantly hunted and killed by drones. Commanders selling postings to the rear for money. Medical documents which ensured a departure from the war sold for cash by officers. Suicides, mental breakdowns, rife use of narcotics, torture. Several of the Indian returnees broke down when talking about their fellow men being raped by Russian soldiers at the front.

But their experiences, incredibly, are in no way unique.

Russia’s presence in African countries has provided it with access to large populations of disaffected individuals on the very lowest rung of the socioeconomic ladder. Young men easily duped into scams similar to that of the Indian men. A chance at a better future, qualifications, prospects, money to help your family. Young African men from over 30 different countries duped or scammed into fighting for Russia in a war they know nothing about. The stories which the survivors tell echo and support those which the Indian men relayed. The Africans tell of endemic racism, being openly referred to and deployed as cannon fodder, forced to charge the Ukrainian lines and exhaust the troops before Russian soldiers attacked. Kenyans, Ugandans, South Africans, dying in their hundreds in tactics more reminiscent of the First World War than a modern day conflict.

President Putin of Russia also sealed a deal whereby Russia supplied North Korea with military technical assistance in return for thousands of ground troops to deploy against Ukraine. These foreign fighters too, talked of confusion, brutality, broken logistic chains, lack of resupply.

And to add to the international flavour of Russia’s ‘special military operation’, let’s not forget the thousands of Cubans fighting on the front lines. Again, mostly poor young men escaping poverty by answering employment adverts, another pipeline of cannon fodder for The Kremlin to throw at Ukrainian defences. In an interesting development, Cuba’s Foreign Minister confirmed that Russia will be sending oil and other petroleum products to the island nation in the guise of ‘humanitarian aid’. As Cuba imported around 60% of its oil from Venezuela, it has almost run dry since the USA attacked Venezuela and cut off the supply to Cuba. I don’t think there’s much doubt that in return for his magnanimous gesture, Putin will request a formal agreement for troops to be provided to assist Russia.

So far, I’ve mentioned the Russian economy and the struggle for manpower as being 2 key factors in why the pressure is ramping up fast. But there’s a third, very recent development that is accelerating the pressure in real time. Starlink, the mobile internet developed by Elon Musk, has been the main platform for Russian communications and command, including drone coordination and deployment. When Ukraine and Europe rightly asked why a businessman with US government contracts was profiting from large scale attacks against civilians, Musk was shamed into shutting down the illicit terminals being used by the Russian military. While Both Ukraine and Russia’s military have been using and relying heavily on the platform, Ukraine has officially registered Starlink terminals whereas Russia has sourced theirs through third-party providers to evade sanctions.

The impact was instant.

All Russian battlefield communications were affected. As one Russian officer explained ‘ . . . it was as though someone had turned off a switch across our whole military.’ So, if things were fraught and confusing before, they just got a whole lot worse. But not to worry, the soldiers could always return to their use of Telegram, the messaging App beloved and utilised for both personal and official use.

Except they couldn’t.

The Kremlin, in an attempt to silence the bad news coming from the Ukraine frontlines and the affected families at home, had shut down the App without warning. So now the Russian military fighting in Ukraine are literally resorting to speaking over captured radios which of course, are intercepted and used as targeting lock-ons for Ukrainian drone, jet, and artillery strikes. Russians have been shelling each other’s positions as confusion and panic abound. Resupply and logistic support has all but ceased due to Ukrainian attacks. Ukraine has recaptured over 400 Square kilometres in under two weeks, its biggest gain in two and a half years.

The problem for Russia is that they have no replacement for Starlink. No redundancy was built in as a failsafe or even a backup. So, for the time being at least, they are like a boxer in the ring whose eyes have been swollen shut, waiting to take the blows before they can lash out wildly in the direction they think they came.

So, massive economic pressures that are starting to become public knowledge. Returning soldiers and their families telling the hard truths all over social media. Troop shortages that are being plugged by scams and press-gang tactics to pull in conscripts from abroad. Operational communications blackout showing immediate effect and losses for Russia. There’s very few administrations on the planet that could hold it together with all these factors smashing them at once, let alone a dictatorship ruled by one ageing individual.

And, not that you need it after reading this, but if you wanted any further confirmation that Russia is seriously on the back foot after these recent developments, have a look at this.

The green marker is Vladimir Putin’s lakeside Valdai residence. The red markers are Air Defence (AD) positions sited to cover and protect the residence from Ukrainian drone, missile, or jet attacks. The yellow marker is the S-400 Triumf, Russia’s advanced mobile long-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, designed to detect and destroy aircraft, drones, and missiles up to 400 km away. In 2023/2024 there were only 2 AD systems in this area. So, a massive increase to say the least.

And the more worrying aspect of this for Russia?

Ukraine’s Flamingo missiles, in the last week, have struck Russian military targets as far as 1400km inside Russia. Defeating Russian air defences. So, Putin may believe he has a ring of steel around his lakeside residence, but these recent strikes show that Ukrainian missiles are capable of beating those air defence systems.

What’s also noticeable is Russia’s latest stance on the ‘peace’ talks in Geneva involving Russia, the USA, and Ukraine. Demands of totality. No grey areas. Different personalities now representing the Kremlin at the talks. Putin cannot walk away from Ukraine without anything resembling a win. To do so seals his own political and, as this is Russia we’re talking about, probably physical, fate. His country is broke, his people disaffected, the oligarchs he previously controlled now plot against him because they are losing money. The deal Putin struck with the oligarchs was always one where as long as they pledged allegiance to him, he would allow them to make money in whatever manner they wanted.

But they’re no longer making that kind of money.

The deal no longer works for them and they’re starting to look at what might come next. Or rather, who might come next. Because they need that person to be one of them, or at least, one who looks after them.

Many people who read my articles and books regularly ask why the current American administration supports Russia so much. A country representing an ideology that Americans have sent their sons and daughters to fight against since the end of World War 2. Even given Trump’s transactional nature, they can’t understand why the USA suddenly switched it’s support to a country with an economy the size of Italy’s. Russia has openly promised the USA riches of 12 Trillion Dollars. As that’s 6 times the size of Russia’s entire economy, I’m smelling a slight exaggeration here. And its the usual trifecta of access to giant oil deposits, rare earth minerals in the arctic, and access to 145 million consumers.

Except . . .

The oil deposits are old and pretty depleted, the minerals are not definitive in terms of quantity, quality or even viability to be accessed, and as for 145 million consumers? The vast majority of Russians are poor. Really poor. So, expensive American exports are not something with which to build a future economic prediction upon. For America as a nation, I don’t see much upside. For Russia, however, any foreign investment and trade will be welcomed with open arms.

But . . .

Even amongst Republicans in Congress and The Senate, there are some serious dissenters over President Trump’s determination for Russia to succeed in its war on Ukraine. Formerly quiet voices are now openly questioning why their Administration is giving clear support to Russia while practically ordering Ukraine to surrender and accede to all Russian demands. As Trump’s physical and political health declines, these voices are growing in number and volume. So, any trade agreements or deals struck in the near future might become null and void a lot sooner than Russia would like.

With Russia being the authoritarian state that it is, no independent media reporting of note exists. The state running the media as a propaganda arm of the government. So it is rare when political dissent from state representatives is covered in any depth or even reported at all. In December, Grigory Yeremeev, a politician from the Volga region of Russia, delivered a speech in Parliament where he demanded an end to the war in Ukraine and openly stated that it was a direct failure for Putin and his regime. Despite being screamed and shouted at by Putin’s acolytes and arse kissers, he concluded his speech laying the failure of the war and the destruction of the Russian economy at the feet of Vladimir Putin. This week, Yeremeev was charged with the standard ‘discrediting the Army’ for his temerity in daring to make public the true state of Russia as a result of the invasion of Ukraine.

In another crackdown on free speech and communications, the Kremlin has also shut down WhatsApp as people were turning to this as an alternative to Telegram which had been shut down earlier. Informed sources, however, believe that the WhatsApp denial is aimed at curbing gatherings and protests that have been steadily growing over the past few months.

A recent action which supports this theory is the sweeping powers that Putin has granted the Russian National Guard, The Rosvgardia. Formerly a state security force which responded to internal threats to the regime, Rosvgardia is now a major paramilitary force in its own right. It now has its own organic heavy weapons, armoured tanks and vehicles, special forces, intelligence, and immediate combat readiness and is deployed at the order and direction of the president. Putin’s own private army more or less. This month, Rosvgardia was given another set of sweeping powers with which to ‘protect the nation’. Powers that resemble the regime cracking down hard on anything that even smells like dissent against the state narrative. Another sign that all is not well from behind the rusting sheets of what’s left of the Iron Curtain.

Short of tactical nuclear weapons, Putin has thrown everything he has at Ukraine and continues to fail. He has bankrupted his country, repressed its citizens and their free speech, and convinced the US President to back him in winning his war. The only problem with that is he is doing the opposite of winning. Putin is losing. Regularly.

As the title of this article alludes to, the Russian Bear is cornered at the moment. Pressure from three different elements combining to stress test Putin’s command and control. And a cornered Bear is the most dangerous. With nothing to lose, there’s no telling what the world’s foremost dictator will do to hold on to power and continue with his quest to recreate the USSR.