RUSSIA/UKRAINE WAR: The Number That Puts Vladimir Putin At Risk
Opinion...

_{Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. His forthcoming paperback is The Cost of Chaos: The Trump Administration and the World. The views expressed in this commentary are his own..}

The Russians are not winning the war in Ukraine and they may even be losing. Neither option is good for Russian leader Vladimir Putin, which he surely knows well,both as a veteran of the Cold War and as a student of Russian history.

The last time the Russians lost a war was in Afghanistan during the 1980s. After a quick victory when they invaded the nation in 1979, the Soviets faced a countrywide insurgency that wasn't particularly effective at first because the Russians completely controlled the airspace. /color]

In an echo of some of the dilemmas that President Joe Biden faces today, the Reagan administration feared a possible nuclear confrontation with the Soviets and was initially reluctant to arm the Afghan rebels with anti-aircraft weapons.

By 1986, reluctance among President Reagan's officials to arm the Afghan resistance with weapons that might actually help them to win the war had evaporated. The CIA armed the Afghans with Stinger anti-aircraft missiles that ended the Soviets' air superiority and greatly increased the Afghans' capacity to inflict significant losses on Soviet forces on the battlefield.

Realizing they were losing the war, the Soviets [color=#990000]withdrew from Afghanistan in February 1989 and installed a puppet Afghan communist government that collapsed three years later, after the Soviet Union had itself expired.

The official Soviet death toll during the Afghan War, which lasted more than nine years, was around 15,000 soldiers. It is therefore quite telling that the Russians may have already lost as many 15,000 soldiers in just one month in Ukraine, according to estimates given to CNN by senior NATO officials.

When the Soviet military departed Afghanistan in 1989, the countries and populations of Eastern Europe -- then under varying degrees of the Soviet yoke -- took note. If the feared Soviet army couldn't win a war on its own borders against Afghan guerrilla forces, what did it say about its ability to control the fates of East Germany, Hungary and Poland?

The failure of the Soviet war in Afghanistan hammered a giant nail into the coffin of the Soviet empire. It's not an accident the Berlin Wall fell just months later, opening up East Germany to the West.

This was arguably the hinge event in Putin's adult life. He was then a KGB officer stationed in East Germany. When Putin sought instructions about what he should do from a Soviet military unit, he was told, "Moscow is silent." Since then, Putin has been trying to reverse Moscow's silence with the goal of restoring as many elements of Russia's former glory as he can.

Just as the Soviets were undone by their loss of the Afghan War, so too was the Romanov monarchy undone by its military defeats in the early 20th century, which ended the Romanovs three-century reign over Russia.

Under the feckless leadership of Tsar Nicholas II, Russia's disastrous performance in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 was the first time in the modern era that an Asian power had defeated a European one. The loss of the Russo-Japanese war was soon compounded by Russia's defeats during World War I. Those losses, along with other factors, led to overthrow of Nicholas II in 1917 and the subsequent rise of the Soviets.

By contrast, Joseph Stalin emerged victorious from World War II -- albeit at a tremendous cost of an estimated more than 25 million Russian dead. Known in Russia as "the Great Patriotic War," this victory helped allow Stalin to continue being, well, Stalin -- a murderous dictator.

An edition of The Economist earlier this month declared "The Stalinization of Russia," which is surely Putin's goal. But it's hard to be neo-Stalinist if you are a loser -- and losing Ukraine isn't out of the question for Putin.

This, of course, raises the possibility that US officials keep warning of, which is that backed into a corner, Putin might use chemical or biological weapons.
The use of nuclear weapons by Russia was also not ruled out by Putin's chief spokesman, Dimitry Peskov, when he spoke to CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday.

Putin's war of choice in Ukraine could lead him to a point where he uses weapons of mass destruction. And even then, he may still lose the war.

This was surely not how Putin dreamed of restoring Russia's glory, a dream that is fast turning into ashes -- just as Putin has reduced the Ukrainian city of Mariupol to ashes.

CNN ll Analysis
Lalasticlala
Mynd44

Russia army are performing very poor in Ukraine..let's be sincere they are way overated..
They are dealing on a foreign ground not in their country and the morale is bad.. you are fighting with people that are ready to fight till their last breath..how then do you expect to win..this actually make me remember the Viet congs..

Very fierce fighters.. y'all gotta give it to the ukrainians..they are bunch of hard fighters..

Forget about what comes from CNN. It's a major propaganda.

Did you notice that all the Number and percentage calculations of Covid 19 on CNN news screen disappeared immediately Donald Trump left office?

If you want your sanity intact, never take CNN serious.

Massiveglory:
Forget about what comes from CNN. It's a major propaganda. If you want your sanity intact, never take CNN serious.

So which one should we take serious pls..

FERNANDEZISBACK:

So which one should we take serious pls..

Take your life serious.

Putin is just an unwise KGB ex officer


With the way Ukraine and NATO countries are dealing with Russia both millitary and economically I just hope that Putin won't be frustrated and putin one Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (IBM) inside APC convention tomorrow

Massiveglory:


Take your life serious.

Don't you think you should instead of bleating around...why are you not taking your life serious..?
Pls do..at least get a grip of yourself..

Read the analysis with corresponding links from reliable sources and stop shouting propaganda! The article is a painstaken scholastic evidence-based work that needs a non-biased mind to assimilate... Not some space booker!

Massiveglory:
Forget about what comes from CNN. It's a major propaganda.

Did you notice that all the Number and percentage calculations of Covid 19 on CNN news screen disappeared immediately Donald Trump left office?

If you want your sanity intact, never take CNN serious.

Unfortunately, guys are not paying attention to concise reading anymore. People just jump on front page to comment trash without proper analytical reading skills...

They flood the first page with irrelevant opinions, leaving those with reasonable and sensible discussions with no room in front.

The mods must do something about irrelevant and unrelated comments on this platform.

Before nko

Hezzyluv:
From the look of things, Russian had invaded countries with less casualties from their side. But this particular invasion has gone sour, "match done enter extra time". They have lost over 15,000 soldiers including top generals.
He (Putin) never envisage it coming.

War does no one good, there must be loses from both ends. Dialogue sure pass,
a pure definition of drink responsibly....

You counted the 15000 right

GardenOfGod:
Unfortunately, guys are not paying attention to concise reading anymore. People just jump on front page to comment trash without proper analytical reading skills...

They flood the first page with irrelevant opinions, leaving those with reasonable and sensible discussions with no room in front.

The mods must do something about irrelevant and unrelated comments on this platform.

FERNANDEZISBACK:
Russia army are performing very poor in Ukraine..let's be sincere they are way overated..
They are dealing on a foreign ground not in their country and the morale is bad.. you are fighting with people that are ready to fight till their last breath..how then do you expect to win..this actually make me remember the Viet congs..

Very fierce fighters.. y'all gotta give it to the ukrainians..they are bunch of hard fighters..

A joint brigade of Fulani herdsmen and ND militants will seize Moscow, as long as the war is not in winter. Russia is the most overrated country ever. Iam sure their nukes don't even work!

Fasindo:





Putin is just an unwise KGB ex officer


With the way Ukraine and NATO countries are dealing with Russia both millitary and economically I just hope that Putin won't be frustrated and putin one Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (IBM) inside APC convention tomorrow

The way you people think of the west is really funny.

You might like to read this. Replace "Bantu" with "black Africans"

Sighs

All these numbers are people's children. The media also needs to learn about honesty while reporting and avoiding biased reports. The same example of the casualties in battle can be placed on the USA campaign in Vietnam against a much smaller and less sophisticated nation. The USA equally lost to the Afghan Taliban after committing several allied multi-forces, sanctions, advanced weaponry, and over 10years of using all that resources to zero results. The Taliban are still alive and in power.

The numbers are not new or the worse. The take-home is that wars are never good and they remain unpredictable and after much the results are never met. Lastly, disinformation is fair game in conflicts and it does nobody any good. It's the last resort with a lot to lose. Russia will lose the west will lose and Ukraine will lose. Humanity will lose too. If only things were just and fair. The so-called UN is rendered weak useless when needed the most and only acts best against weak states. Powerful nation-states with veto power are exempt from any compliance or enforcement.

The world has no balance and humanity never learn.

FERNANDEZISBACK:
Russia army are performing very poor in Ukraine..let's be sincere they are way overated..
They are dealing on a foreign ground not in their country and the morale is bad.. you are fighting with people that are ready to fight till their last breath..how then do you expect to win..this actually make me remember the Viet congs..

Very fierce fighters.. y'all gotta give it to the ukrainians..they are bunch of hard fighters..

Russia will still demilitarize Ukraine

Nonsense propangada


I still wonder why Russia is treating Ukraine
Softly and losing soldiers

CNN thank you, I nodey read, lies

Propaganda

FERNANDEZISBACK:

So which one should we take serious pls..

The one he drew out of his asshole

Fasindo:





[color=#550000]Putin is just an unwise KGB ex officer


With the way Ukraine and NATO countries are dealing with Russia both millitary and economically I just hope that Putin won't be frustrated and putin one Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (IBM) inside APC convention tomorrow [/color]

Lol.

ayindejimmy:


The one he drew out of his asshole

You are so funny

Efulefu:
Propaganda

Eastern or western propaganda

ken6488:

Nonsense propangada


I still wonder why Russia is treating Ukraine
Softly and losing soldiers

Chai! See confusion.

Denial but admit

This kinda news always look like nuclear physics to Putin Fan Bots

They will invade the thread with "fake news and Western propaganda"