"Ukraine is winning this war only on Twitter, not on the battlefield," Professor Stephen Kotkin, perhaps the most authoritative expert on Russian history, has told The New Yorker.
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The missile attack just miles from the Polish border on Sunday, which resulted in almost 200 casualties (including some 30 dead), means the war has expanded to the Western part of Ukraine, to a base near the biggest Ukrainian city in the region. The Polish government's reactions make it clear that Warsaw considers the missile attack to be a threat, and there is ever-growing fear that chemical weapons will be introduced.
These alarming developments dovetail with Russian President Vladimir Putin's threats from the first week of the war, in which he warned that he could be forced to use nuclear weapons. This obscure threat was designed to deter the US and NATO member states from direct involvement in the conflict. He has also been behind a campaign to terrorize the civilian population to force them to evacuate. This, it seems, underscores the growing realization that among the war's objectives is ethnic cleansing of the area
The Russian failure, so far, has been limited to the Kyiv region. Apart from that, Kotkin argues that the campaign is moving according to plan.
Putin, by taking his country to war, has placed its future in limbo. This neatly sums up the differences between leaders' mindsets in Russia vs. their counterparts in the US. But firing the missiles close to Poland, he now makes this uncertainty part of the West's fortunes as well.
Does he want to carve up Ukraine into several entities? Will he turn the Dnieper River, which Russia believes is the natural barrier separating Europe from Asia, into the new Berlin Wall. Regardless of whether the attack on Western Ukraine was supposed to be a distraction or part of a real military objective, one thing is clear: Taking over Ukraine's Black Sea coast will effectively turn the country into a small client state that lacks any gateway to the world via the sea. Another Moldova, but weaker.
The lack of US presence on the world stage is clearly noticeable. Vice President Kamala Harris' visit to Poland only highlighted the administration's posture on how to find a diplomatic path out of this morass. It is clear that the talks between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov will serve as smoke and mirrors by the Russians to help carry out their ethnic cleansing.
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