The war, the dictator insisted, was “going to plan”. If that is his opinion then his minions are keeping him from the truth. According to American defence sources, 10% of Russia’s invasion force has been lost, presumably either killed or wounded. It is shy at least 233 tanks, 32 surface-to-air missile launchers and 41 planes, drones and helicopters, according to Oryx, a blog which tracks such weapons using pictures made public on the internet. On top of that which has been destroyed, a fair bit of workable Russian kit has been captured—much of it towed away gleefully, and on video, by farmers with tractors.

These are severe losses of men and materiel. What is more, they seem to have fallen disproportionately on elite units such as the vdv airborne forces, Spetsnaz special forces and the First Guards Tank Army, an armoured force purportedly both well trained and equipped. British defence intelligence says that these losses are so severe that they have left Russia “struggling to conduct offensive operations”. It has been forced to redeploy forces from its eastern military district (which stretches to Vladivostok), from its Pacific fleet and from Armenia; it is also recruiting Russian and Syrian mercenaries.

This is a high price for what are, as yet, relatively scant gains.

Read it all.

Where Volodymyr Zelensky has appealed to listeners around the world in the name of all Ukrainians, Vladimir Putin has set Russian against Russian https://t.co/rknjDxQhf9

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) March 17, 2022

These are miscalculations, not signs of madness. They’re the kind of miscalculations you make if you are very divorced from reality, because you lead the life of a czar, in vast — if hideous — palaces, surrounded by people who are terrified of you and tell you what they think you want to hear. If I put myself in Putin’s position, I don’t think he’s trying to resurrect the Soviet Union. He’s looking back even further and trying to bring back the Russian Empire, with himself as “Czar Vladimir.”

It’s an ideology of conservative, orthodox nationalism that Putin offers, that has nothing to do with the Soviet legacy. A lot of people get this wrong.

He has a huge incentive to speed up the defeat of Ukraine, using more brutal methods if that’s what it takes. Because if he doesn’t win, then I think his position at home will become very vulnerable.

If I’m him, the crucial thing now is to achieve victory over Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian army as fast as possible so that we can get to some peace negotiation from a position of strength. In that negotiation, Putin might be willing to make some concessions to get the sanctions reduced or removed.

Read it all.

#China has ambitions in Central and East Asia that pose a potential threat to #Russia, notes historian Niall Ferguson. "At some point their relationship begins to fray because, in truth, neither side really trusts the other."https://t.co/dDfabxZvO8

— Nikkei Asia (@NikkeiAsia) March 14, 2022

To grasp Mr Putin’s appetite for violence, look at how the war is being fought. Having failed to win a quick victory, Russia is trying to sow panic by starving Ukrainian cities and pounding them blindly. On March 9th it hit a maternity hospital in Mariupol. If Mr Putin is committing war crimes against the fellow Slavs he eulogised in his writings, he is ready to inflict slaughter at home.

And to gauge Mr Putin’s paranoia, imagine how the war ends. Russia has more firepower than Ukraine. It is still making progress, especially in the south. It may yet capture the capital, Kyiv. And yet, even if the war drags on for months, it is hard to see Mr Putin as the victor.

Suppose that Russia manages to impose a new government. Ukrainians are now united against the invader. Mr Putin’s puppet could not rule without an occupation, but Russia does not have the money or the troops to garrison even half of Ukraine. American army doctrine says that to face down an insurgency—in this case, one backed by nato—occupiers need 20 to 25 soldiers per 1,000 people; Russia has a little over four.

If, as the Kremlin may have started to signal, Mr Putin will not impose a puppet government—because he cannot—then he will have to compromise with Ukraine in peace talks. Yet he will struggle to enforce any such agreement. After all, what will he do if post-war Ukraine resumes its Westward drift: invade?

Read it all.

The truth is sinking in that, by attacking Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has committed a catastrophic error. As the scale of his failure becomes clear, Russia will enter the most dangerous moment in this conflict https://t.co/jTTz9pddGc

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) March 10, 2022

For one thing, Putin’s attack has underscored the financial and technological dominance of the Western world. There is simply no precedent for the speed and severity with which the U.S. and its allies have punished Putin, almost totally isolating Russia from the global economy.

Sanctions are inflicting severe damage on Russia; a stock-market collapse, import problems and a debt default all loom. China is watching from the sidelines as the world’s leading democracies have shown the willingness and ability to pummel international aggressors economically. Although China, with a larger, more diversified, more globally integrated economy, is a far harder target that Russia, Xi must be wondering what economic carnage awaits his country if it attacks Taiwan.

Second, Russian aggression has activated antibodies to Chinese power. Japan, Singapore and Taiwan joined the anti-Putin sanctions team because they worry that unchecked aggression in Europe will tempt Beijing to make moves in the Pacific. If Putin sets a precedent of successful conquest, Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida has said, “it will have an impact on Asia, as well.”

Warnings that Beijing might use force against Taiwan in the next few years no longer seem so hyperbolic, which means that Putin’s gambit could result in more determined, multilateral containment of China.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

The Ukraine war may push China and Russia closer together. Even so, Beijing may be learning that proximity to a violent predator has its price.
⁦@bopinion⁩ ⁦@KissingerCenter⁩ ⁦@AEIfdp⁩ https://t.co/ibZ36w05w0

— Hal Brands (@HalBrands) March 10, 2022

The Archbishop of Westminster and dozens of other clergymen from the Christian Leadership of London have written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson urging him to extend the visa programme to all Ukrainian refugees.

The letter, sent on Wednesday, said the group was “encouraged” by the Government’s family sponsorship programme and “welcomed the intention to establish a pathway to humanitarian sponsorship”.

But they called for “urgency” and to “act swiftly and without delay”, criticising the visa forms process.

“How can mothers with young children, the elderly and the disabled, who have travelled a thousand miles, be expected to complete online application forms in a language foreign to them?”, the letter reads.

Read it all.

Religious leaders urge PM to extend Ukrainian visa scheme https://t.co/u6hYSic49k

— The Independent (@Independent) March 10, 2022

Unless it receives urgent help, Moldova faces a catastrophe. The government estimated before the invasion that it could accommodate just 15,000 Ukrainians. Already, refugee centres are full, the border guards are overstretched and stocks of relief supplies are running dangerously low. If nearby Odessa, a city of 1m people just 50km from the border, comes under Russian assault, as seems entirely possible, tens of thousands more will come. “The prospects are dire,” says Mr Popescu. “We are talking about a major threat to the whole state system.”

The government intends to ask the eu to deploy Frontex, the eu’s border agency, to support its own border police. But it is financial support, above all, that is needed. The European offer of just €15m ($16.5m) to help allay the immediate crisis is meagre. The government is already running a big and growing deficit, owing in part to the rising price of natural gas imported from Russia. The economy has suffered two recessions in recent years, the most recent because of the pandemic. Without generous help, Moldova will not cope. Yet many Moldovans feel that they have been forgotten, as aid and praise rain down on Ukraine’s far richer neighbours in the eu.

Moreover, the refugee crisis may only be the first part in what many fear will be a two-act tragedy. There is widespread nervousness that Russia does not intend to leave Moldova alone if it is successful in Ukraine.

Read it all.

Son ⁦@Jacob_Judah is in Moldova:⁩ The tinderbox – Will Moldova be dragged into Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine? | Europe | The Economist https://t.co/GnZZgYNwz1

— Tim Judah (@timjudah1) March 9, 2022

In the coming weeks it will become more and more obvious that our biggest problem with Putin in Ukraine is that he will refuse to lose early and small, and the only other outcome is that he will lose big and late. But because this is solely his war and he cannot admit defeat, he could keep doubling down in Ukraine until … until he contemplates using a nuclear weapon.

Why do I say that defeat in Ukraine is Putin’s only option, that only the timing and size is in question? Because the easy, low-cost invasion he envisioned and the welcome party from Ukrainians he imagined were total fantasies — and everything flows from that.

Putin completely underestimated Ukraine’s will to be independent and become part of the West. He completely underestimated the will of many Ukrainians to fight, even if it meant dying, for those two goals. He completely overestimated his own armed forces. He completely underestimated President Biden’s ability to galvanize a global economic and military coalition to enable Ukrainians to stand and fight and to devastate Russia at home — the most effective U.S. coalition-building effort since George H.W. Bush made Saddam Hussein pay for his folly of seizing Kuwait. And he completely underestimated the ability of companies and individuals all over the world to participate in, and amplify, economic sanctions on Russia — far beyond anything governments initiated or mandated.

Read it all.

In Opinion

“In the coming weeks it will become more and more obvious that our biggest problem with Putin in Ukraine is that he will refuse to lose early and small,” Thomas Friedman writes. “The only other outcome is that he will lose big and late.” https://t.co/577L8AYRbU

— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 9, 2022

There is a reasonable chance that an embargo will set off the internal disintegration of Vladimir Putin’s siloviki regime (KGB mafia), though by what mechanism and on what timetable remains obscure. Will Russia’s patriotic generals agree to devastate the Varingian cradle of Kievan Mother Rus with cluster bombs? I doubt it.

Professor Alan Riley from the Atlantic Council said the combination of central bank sanctions, ejection from the Swift payments system, and an energy embargo could test this brutal but narrow and brittle regime to destruction. “We may reach the point where Putin can’t even pay his troops,” he said.

Those in Europe still baulking at an energy embargo should study what happened in 1935 when Benito Mussolini launched a 400,000-strong invasion of Ethiopia, to the indignation of a world moving beyond imperialism.

Half measures proved to be the worst of all worlds. Calibrated sanctions enraged Mussolini without stopping him. They pushed him into an alliance with Hitler, bringing about what the democracies most feared.

Read it all.

"What is clear is that the Western democracies no longer deem it morally defensible to fund Putin’s war machine with purchases of oil, gas, and coal" | Writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard https://t.co/qhNn86aooS

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) March 8, 2022

The Archbishop of Canterbury has called for peace negotiations in Ukraine and compassion for refugees, as the humanitarian crisis in the country worsens.

Speaking to pupils at a school in Crawley, on Saturday, Archbishop Welby said: “We need negotiation, mediation, getting people to support peace but not creating more war.” He also called for UK citizens to show generosity towards refugees. “We need to turn towards each other and care for each other,” he said.

More than 1.6 million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion on 24 February, according to UN figures.

On Friday, USPG and the diocese in Europe announced an emergency appeal to help those caught up in the conflict. Funds will go to Christian charities and churches working on the ground to support people fleeing Ukraine.

Read it all.

“We need negotiation, mediation, getting people to support peace but not creating more war.” https://t.co/XgylKiJFnE

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 7, 2022

Poland has long warned its Western partners about the risk of Russian aggression in Ukraine, and indeed beyond, and the need to anchor its neighbour in NATO and the EU. Today, as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the country is on the frontline of a potentially explosive conflict. The role it seems to play is as important as it is dangerous. Poland is fast becoming the lynchpin of the Western effort to defend Ukraine and deter Russia, a role that exposes it to considerable danger at the same time as it is playing principal recipient of the most extensive and rapid movement of refugees in Europe’s post-war history.

Hundreds of Stinger missiles, Javelin anti-tank weapons and other munitions have been pouring into Ukraine, through Poland and Romania, as part of America’s $350m package to assist the besieged country. Pentagon officials say that most of the weapons have already reached Ukraine. America has also proposed that Poland supply Ukraine with its own MiG-29 fighter jets, and receive American F-16s in exchange, according to Antony Blinken, the secretary of state. So far, Polish officials say they will not be sending warplanes to Ukraine, though there are reports that they may be supplied in unassembled form.

People are making their way across the border as well. Most of the world’s attention has been on the 1.6m Ukrainians who have escaped abroad since the start of the war, including the 1m refugees who have reached Poland. But many are heading in the opposite direction. Over the first ten days of the war, Polish border guards recorded 217,000 crossings into Ukraine. Of these, a large share are by Ukrainians, men and women, coming back home to enlist.

Read it all.

Now it appears that Mr. Xi’s display of solidarity may have, possibly unwittingly, emboldened Mr. Putin to gamble on going to war to bring Ukraine to heel.

A retracing of Beijing’s trail of decisions shows how Mr. Xi’s deep investment in a personal bond with Mr. Putin has limited China’s options and forced it into policy contortions.

Before and shortly after the invasion, Beijing sounded sympathetic to Moscow’s security demands, mocking Western warnings of war and accusing the United States of goading Russia. Over the past two weeks, though, China has sought to edge slightly away from Russia. It has softened its tone, expressing grief over civilian casualties. It has cast itself as an impartial party, calling for peace talks and for the war to stop as soon as possible.

The quandaries for China, and Mr. Xi, remain.

Read it all.

Publicly, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin had vowed that the friendship between China and Russia had "no limits." Now it appears that Xi's display of solidarity may have, perhaps unwittingly, emboldened Putin to gamble on going to war. https://t.co/Dd3eMjFM32

— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 7, 2022

NATO is already supplying Ukraine with lethal weapons and imposing harsh sanctions on Russia. It can and should do more. One idea is for Poland to give Ukraine some of its old Soviet-made fighter aircraft. It could also bolster Ukrainian air-defences with longer-range systems than the portable Stinger missiles they have received so far. Both would help more than asking NATO pilots to do the job for them.

Another good idea would be to degrade Russia’s economy further by imposing embargoes on buying Russian oil and gas. The current sanctions avoid energy, but Russia desperately needs hard currency from oil and gas exports to pay for its imports, because existing sanctions have frozen its reserves.

Both arms supplies and an embargo also risk escalation. And sanctions on Russian energy would come at a high price to the world economy. But they entail less risk and a lower price than a no-fly zone would. What is more, they might actually work.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

A no-fly zone is an alluring proposal. It is also wrong-headed https://t.co/hNUVuzs6zd

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) March 6, 2022

Mr Biden has been keen on arms control since he first ran for the Senate, the same year that Nixon went to China. Last year he extended the New start treaty, which limits American and Russian deployments of strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550 each. He has also tried to entice China into arms-control talks. And he has argued that America should shift to a doctrine declaring that the “sole purpose” of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attack.

Such a change now looks unlikely. China is fast building up its nuclear warheads. The Pentagon reckons a total in the “low-200s” in 2020 might reach 1,000 or more by 2030. America’s allies have lobbied hard for America to preserve “extended deterrence”, which leaves open resorting to nuclear weapons against superior conventional forces. Russia’s threats supply a powerful new argument. Mr Abe says Japan should think of hosting American nuclear weapons, as Germany does. This would be a big shift from Japan’s long-standing “three non-nuclear principles”: not making nukes, not possessing nukes, and not allowing nukes to be stationed in the country.

Like much of the new geopolitics, the effect on nuclear strategy around the world will depend to some extent on what transpires in Ukraine. “If Putin’s threat is seen to be successful, it could spur further proliferation,” says James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank. “If the threat ends up being seen as bluster because nuclear weapons are not usable, then it might end up actually reducing proliferation pressures.”

But some worries apply however the war ends. A wounded but victorious Russia may feel emboldened to further threaten nato; a Russia bogged down by a Ukrainian insurgency may want to lash out at those equipping Ukrainian fighters; a Russia which tries to topple its leader will be unstable. The early years of the cold war, notes Thomas Wright of Brookings, were filled with danger—from the Soviet Union’s blockade of West Berlin in 1948-49 to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962—before detente eventually brought greater predictability. As Mr Wright points out, “We are at the beginning of a new era, and beginnings can be dangerous.”

Read it all.

How the war in #Ukraine is changing geopolitics. Democracy v autocracy; Europe sheds its pacifist robes; Russia cleaves to China; nuclear escalation; and whether America can stitch together its alliances on the Eurasian "Rimland" https://t.co/6q4POINIzB

— Anton La Guardia (@AntonLaGuardia) March 3, 2022

Speaking in an emergency debate in the House of Lords on Friday morning, Archbishop Cottrell condemned Vladimir Putin’s “flagrant disregard of the Ukrainian people’s legitimate right to self-determination”.

“Jesus urged his followers to be ‘peacemakers’, not simply peace-lovers,” he told peers. “This is an important distinction, because it is a call to action.

“The horrors being visited on Ukraine must must be a wake-up call for us that peace is something you need to work at.”

Archbishop Cottrell continued: “We must use all our diplomatic muscle and energy, stringent economic sanctions, and focused political will to force Russia to step back from this aggression, withdraw its troops and silence the guns, not least because effective sanctions will mean many innocent Russians suffer as well. Our actions must be swift and cohesive if they are to be decisive.”

Lasting peace “requires a new commitment to international instruments of law and order, accountability and investment so that we make peace and choose peace, not just hope to keep it.”

Read it all (registration or subscription) and you may find his speech in full there.

“Jesus urged his followers to be ‘peacemakers’, not simply peace-lovers. This is an important distinction, because it is a call to action. The horrors being visited on Ukraine must must be a wake-up call for us that peace is something you need to work at.” https://t.co/DmtifHfxWu

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 25, 2022