the biggest mistake

Has Putin made the biggest mistake of his life by invading Ukraine?

Submission accepted by Charles F. LeeSee parent question

I’m surprised by the amount of people that get consumed by ideology and try to explain this war as a mere obsession with reforming the Soviet Union, they’re not completely wrong as I will explain a bit further in my answer but not for the reasons they think, so let’s start. It is an incredibly complex situation that goes beyond ideology and incorporates so many aspects so: Why has Vladimir Putin started a war on Ukraine?

The first thing that we have to look at is surprisingly… demographics. Here’s a Russian demographic map from 2020.

Russia like the rest of Europe and most of the industrialized world is getting old and getting old fast, the Soviet educational system collapsed in 1989, meaning that the last of Russian engineers with the training to maintain the missile forces, their infrastructure, their army, electricity grid etc, are now in their 50s, average male mortality in Russia is 68.

Now let’s look at their younger population, by 2026 their people on draftable age (18–20) will drop by half to a size that wouldn't be a military threat to the countries in their periphery, so if the Russian were going to do something militarily about their neighborhood they have to do it now, they don’t have time.

2. Second, let’s take a look at geography from a Russian perspective. So here’s a map of Russia, north on the right side. (A map of Texas for size comparison)

This map show’s the vulnerabilities of the Russian territory, the Russian heartland is flat and lies in the Northern Eurasian plain making it terribly difficult to defend, the Russian answer to that centuries ago was to expand as much as possible until they could find a natural barrier to anchor to. In the current Russian territory, there are a total of 9 gaps (meaning points that are not protected by any natural barrier) by which in theory Russia could be invaded militarily, culturally or economically, looking back at Russian history one can remember the Mongols attacking from the East, Persians from the central one, the Turkish from Crimea, the Germans from the Polish one and even the Swedish from the Baltic. At the height of the Soviet Union, Russia controlled all 9 of those gaps but with the collapse of the Soviets, they went from controlling 9 to controlling 2, with the seizure of Crimea they went to 3. If they win, and according to the military probability, they will in Ukraine that would get them to 4, the stronghold/alliance with Belarus gets them to almost 5 (they would have to get a piece of Poland to completely secure it but it still is a much better geopolitical position). The more gaps the Russian control the fewer men and military might they would need to defend them, one good way to think about it is the movie 300, it is easy to defend a narrow gap in between desserts or mountains but incredibly difficult to defend open spaces with nothing but grass on the sides.

3. The third thing to consider is the consequences of the war, Russia is convinced that if they don’t secure their borders before it’s too late they will eventually cease to exist as a nation and a cultural entity like I explained before they are in the middle of a plain so basically anyone would be able to dominate them once they no longer posses a strong military presence. The Russian government doesn’t care about any economic sanctions that the West might apply to them because in their eyes this is the next few years is their last stand to have a chance of cultural and national survival. Currently thanks to their political alliances with some of the countries (Armenia) and nations in the Caucasus (Dagestan, Chechnya) and their Crimean adventure they are more or less in control of the Caucasus gaps, they’re political and economical control over the central Asian republics secures them that gap and their curious and seemingly feeble relationship with China would (as well as their nuclear arsenal) give them securities to the eastern gaps (at least for now), it remains to be seen if their allies would continue to support them in the future because even if Russian doesn’t care about economic sanctions, these countries might. Russia is effectively as of 2 days ago isolated economically from the West and its allies, basically reimposing the Cold War economic status-quo, Russia’s allies might not be up for that and that would put Russia in a position of aggression and attack, basically having to conquer all those places (not China) just to get back what they have now, it is not clear that they have the capabilities to do so.

4. The War in Ukraine, like I said before Russia will win that war in all likelihood, the West could play this out two different ways:

The most unlikely, and getting more unlikely as the hours go by and the measures are taken, is to engage militarily against Russia, which would effectively start World War III, Russia being a strong military and more importantly, nuclear power is the main reason almost every politician and most people would be against this option.

The most likely scenario and the one we are starting to see play out is a bloody one and a sad one for Ukrainians, the West is supplying Ukraine with weapons to make the war as long and as grueling as possible, they know Russia will eventually win but the objective is a different one, by doing this they would be dragging Russia into a long and resource consuming war that could very well, even in victory, be the end of Russia’s military capacity outside of their own territory, the ones that would end up suffering the consequences is Ukraine itself as it would be their citizens and their cities that would be the most devastated.

5. In Conclusion, my answer is not to justify Russia as it is my opinion that they could’ve achieved their main objective in Ukraine (Not joining NATO, and not having to worry about that gap) with diplomacy or by other means, but to say that this war is just to boost Putin’s ego or for him to build a legacy would be ignoring the reality of a Russian state that is desperate.