Like the real Nazis of the past, Russia must not win

Russia’s armed forces have disgraced themselves in Ukraine, and their leaders proved themselves incompetent. That much is clear, and dangerous, because it makes the Kremlin even more desperate for victory, and even more reliant on terrorising the civilian population of Ukraine, and bandying around the threat of using nuclear weaponry.

Having failed in conventional combat under the established rules of war, they can only prevail, so they think, by resorting to barbarism and even positing the destruction of the planet in a thermonuclear conflagration. In such a circumstance there would be no Ukraine, nor Russia nor, more to the point, Vladimir Putin, which means that he is bluffing.

As the west has scaled up its response to the Russian atrocities – which have persuaded wavering Nato allies to export arms to Ukraine – the chances of Russian victory are receding. The latest bravado from President Putin seems to be that he is now determined to take control of the whole of the region, likely including Moldova, rather than merely settling for Crimea and the Donbas region, as was previously assumed. He is doubling down on his imperial ambitions, at least rhetorically.

Yet the Kremlin is also playing down much of that being accomplished by 9 May, the date when Russia celebrates victory over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War. If Russia is to prevail at all, it will take months, if not years.

The beauty of President Putin’s original plan for a lightning strike on Kyiv to usurp the Zelensky government was that the “special military operation” would be over in days, long before the west had a chance to respond, let alone save Ukraine. Now, as the west’s tanks, jets, anti-aircraft systems and intelligence flows east, Russia is facing even better equipped as well as determined resistance. The Kremlin’s best chance of victory has passed.

It is just as well, too, for the west and Ukraine that Russia’s diplomatic efforts are as inept as those on the battlefield. As foreign minister and a crony of the president, Sergei Lavrov’s latest contribution to international understanding is to state that Adolf Hitler had “Jewish blood”. This is Mr Lavrov’s clumsy attempt to substantiate the absurd idea that Ukraine is a “Nazi” state, despite the fact that its democratically elected president is Jewish, a man who has now reached Churchillian status.

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Already semi-isolated in the international community, even “neutral” powers such as China and India must be doubting the wisdom of associating themselves with war crimes, and, maybe more important, a power that is about to lose the cruel, unnecessary war it started.

In trade terms, Russia as an export market is about as large as Belgium, and, though equipped with nuclear missiles, has shown itself to be a volatile and unreliable friend. Compared to the combined west, encompassing most of the Americas, Japan, South Korea and Australasia, Russia is an unpromising economic and diplomatic partner.

It is a disaster for Russia, as they were warned by Boris Johnson and others that it would be, and a shameful one. Seven decades ago, Russia and a Ukraine were united in a life-and-death struggle against real Nazis and liberated the death factories of the Holocaust.

Today, Russia’s leaders spout antisemitic nonsense, stand accused of genocide and treat the people of a friendly neighbouring nation as subhuman. However long it takes, Russia, like the real Nazis of the past, must lose.