Will Vladimir Putin Put His Shirt Back On In Ukraine?

Putin is threatening a pyrrhic invasion of Ukraine to distract Russians from his long string of geopolitical failures and severe economic mismanagement.

Photo by Artem Kniaz

[Published first on my substack, The Halfway Café. If you enjoy progressive takes on contemporary politics and foreign policy, subscribe!]

Since NATO’s sleepy alliance has been startled awake by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s sudden territorial ambitions in Ukraine, it’s a fine time to discuss just how terrible an idea Putin’s potential invasion would be for Russia.

First of all, talk about a hard sell to convince the average Russian citizen this potential war from left field with Ukraine is somehow necessary or even justified. Putin has tried some token measures of cultural jingoism, notably a blatant propaganda letter he recently distributed throughout his military claiming Ukrainians and Russians are the same people alongside other ahistorical claims of a shared Kiev-centered heritage neglecting to contextualize centuries of varying Ukrainian independence, rivalry, resistance, and separatism. Current polling clearly shows that Ukrainians and even Russians don’t buy it.

Putin may desire to reintegrate lost pieces of the Soviet Union (and the Tzarist Empire before it), but he would be wise to remember that the USSR’s…