In the nearly two decades that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been in power, he has devoted a lot of time and money to building and modernizing the Russian military. In the process, Putin gained a reputation as a force to be reckoned with and was widely regarded as one of the most powerful leaders in the world.
But the war in Ukraine has decimated the Russian military that Putin spent years building, while raising questions about his authority, Russia experts and military analysts told Insider.
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a strategic defeat. So far the Kremlin has failed to achieve its strategic-level objectives and has incurred significant costs. Russia’s military will have to rebuild,” George Barros, a military analyst with the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), told Insider.
“The ground force of the conventional ground army that the Kremlin has spent the last two decades building up – seeking to build a modern army – that force has simply been greatly degraded and largely destroyed in the last six months of the war in Ukraine” . Barros added. “It is quite correct to say that conventional Russian ground power has taken a significant hit in Ukraine. It will have to be rebuilt.”
Although death tolls are difficult to confirm as the fighting continues, US military estimates last month put Russian casualties as high as 80,000. Among the dead are senior officers, including generals.
Barros said it will likely take “a generation to rebuild” the Russian officer corps, which “will certainly have a long-term strategic impact on the net assessment for Russia’s conventional military.”
And although Putin has so far avoided declaring a general mobilization to make up for significant troop losses in Ukraine, the Russian leader in August ordered the military to increase its ranks by 137,000 by 2023, an ambitious goal seen by some as unattainable and one of many signs that the Russian military is being overwhelmed by the war in Ukraine.
A recent intelligence update from the British Ministry of Defense said the elite 1st Guards Tank Army and other units of the Western Military District had suffered heavy casualties, indicating that “Russia’s conventional force designed to counter NATO has been severely weakened.” The ministry added that “it will likely take years for Russia to rebuild this capability.”
The Russian military has also seen the damage, destruction and abandonment of staggering amounts of equipment in Ukraine. It is estimated to have lost thousands of armored vehicles since the war began in late February. These losses forced the Russian military to resort to removing obsolete Soviet-era equipment, such as T-62 tanks, from storage.
A damaged Russian main battle tank rusts next to the main highway in the city on May 20, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
“Not as strong as we thought”
Russia’s military is generally ranked as the second most powerful in the world — second only to the US. But Russia’s disastrous performance in the Ukraine war “will dramatically change the assessment of Russia’s military power,” Robert Orttung, a professor of international affairs at George Washington University whose research focuses on Russia and Ukraine, told Insider. The Russian military is “not as strong as we thought,” he said. A few years ago, Russia seemed to be winning the war in Syria, and “Russian strategy seemed to be outpacing Western strategy in the Middle East,” Orttung said, and it gave a big boost to Moscow’s propaganda about its military might. “A lot of their ability to make their propaganda effective was based on their actual prowess on the battlefield, which seemed to be quite strong in Syria,” Orttung said. “Now, basically unable to achieve their goals, unable to show that there is integration between the fighting boys on the ground, the air force and the other units – it will certainly bring them down. The fact that they have not won in the field will do their propaganda much less effective.” Before the invasion began, Russia was expected to capture Kyiv within days. But Ukrainian forces, aided by Western-supplied military equipment, put up much tougher resistance than Moscow expected. Russian forces failed to capture the Ukrainian capital and instead turned their attention to the eastern Donbas region. Although war has been raging in the region between Kremlin-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces since 2014 — the same year Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea — Russia has made only incremental progress in its campaign to seize Donbass. Ukraine has launched a counteroffensive in recent days, pushing Russian forces into retreat and recapturing a stunning swath of territory in the country’s south and east. The Ukrainian government said its forces have retaken about 3,000 square miles in September so far. Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with the head of Russia’s consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor Anna Popova at the Kremlin in Moscow on September 14, 2022. GAVRIIL GRIGOROV/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images
“I wouldn’t write Putin off now”
Between catastrophic troop losses and Russian forces now on the run, Putin finds himself in an increasingly precarious position. “Force is Putin’s only source of legitimacy,” Abbas Gallyamov, Putin’s former speech editor, told The New York Times. “And in a situation where he turns out to be powerless, his legitimacy will start to drop to zero.” Galiamov told The Times that if Ukrainian forces “continue to destroy the Russian military as actively as they are now,” then it could “accelerate” elite calls to choose Putin’s successor. Some Russia watchers now believe that Putin’s regime is in danger. Michael McFaul, the former US ambassador to Russia, tweeted on Wednesday: “Putin overreached in Ukraine. It’s the beginning of the end for Putinism in Russia.” Local Russian lawmakers are calling for Putin’s removal from power in Ukraine, taking the potentially deadly risk of openly criticizing a leader with a reputation for ruthlessly stifling dissent. Even the Kremlin’s propagandists in Russian state media are struggling to keep offering positive assessments of how the war is shaping up. “You’re starting to see voices — both on television and at the local grassroots level — of dissatisfaction with his leadership and a realization that the war is not going in Russia’s favor,” Orttung said. Overall, Orttung said these developments “raise questions [Putin’s] image among people and his ability to exercise that image of competence’. Despite these challenges and the damage done to perceptions of Russia’s power, Orttung is not convinced that this is the end for Putin. “I wouldn’t write Putin off now,” he said. “Many people, myself included, predicted that he would be out of power or that his death was imminent. But he has many advantages – the main advantage is that he has eliminated any possible, credible alternative to him.” “It’s not clear who will replace him and all the people around him – they depend on him being in power for their own power. They have a stake in him staying there. And he survived for more than 22 years fighting in a pretty tough environment. which is the Russian political scene,” added Orttung, underlining that “most elites think they are probably better off with Putin there.”
