Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 3 October 2022. © Richard Kemp
Putin constantly invokes parallels with the Second World War to justify his war. European assault on Russia, denazification of Ukraine, the list goes on. In reality the closest parallel is his own resemblance to Hitler, an effective political strategist but an incompetent commander-in-chief, whose greatest blunder was perhaps to hold the Wehrmacht back from Dunkirk in 1940, allowing the British army to escape. History is likely to judge Putin’s most ruinous decision as invading Ukraine with grossly inadequate numbers.
As Russian fortunes go from bad to worse, Putin, like Hitler, is increasingly micromanaging events on the battlefield, sometimes directing operations down to battalion level. For example, as Ukraine attacks strategically important cities in the east and south, Putin insists his over-stretched troops continue a slow, grinding assault against the eastern town of Bakhmut, squandering forces that could reinforce Russian defences elsewhere, in the vain hope of being able to assuage his critics in Moscow by announcing some kind of offensive success.
Meanwhile the sweeping Ukrainian counter-offensive around Kharkov was deeply humiliating for Putin, not only losing territory close to Russia’s border but also boosting Ukrainian national morale and re-invigorating support from the West, which finally saw real results from its immense financial and military investment in Ukrainian fighting capability.
Of course Putin’s strategic incompetence could not be blamed for this disaster so, as in previous setbacks, he fired generals and replaced them with even greater sycophants, once also the habit of the Nazi leader. The fall of Lyman in Donetsk a few days ago, just hours after Putin declared the province to be Russia’s ‘forever’ was a major strategic and political blow. Although the defenders knew they couldn’t hold, Putin refused to allow them to withdraw and so hundreds were reportedly captured and their equipment seized or destroyed, further diminishing Russian combat power. Continue reading