Corrupt and arrogant, but very dangerous: WP expert warns against illusions about Russia
Date: 2024-09-20 Author: Кирило Загоруйко Categories: WORLD
The full-scale invasion of Ukraine has become a strategic disaster for Russia. However, despite its technological backwardness, corruption and incompetence of the military-political leadership, Russia still remains a powerful force that is capable of creating problems around the world. This is what columnist Lee Hockstader, who specializes in European, in particular Russian, topics, writes in an opinion piece for The Washington Post.
He drew attention to the fact that this week Russia began large-scale naval exercises "Ocean-2024", which, according to Russian data, involve 400 warships, submarines and auxiliary vessels, as well as about 90,000 military personnel. The exercises are taking place in the North Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, as well as in the Mediterranean, Caspian and Baltic Seas.
"Even if the Russian numbers are inflated, the operation was a reminder that Moscow has ample opportunity to project influence around the world. This sobering fact is often lost amid the growing threat of China and Washington's pivot to the Indo-Pacific," the journalist writes.
Hockstader described the Russian ground forces as "incompetently led and subservient to a tyrant who was a prisoner of his own arrogance and neo-imperial ambitions."
"But even though Russia is a corrupt, retrograde, nihilistic force, it remains a force," he stressed, recalling that Russia currently spends a third of its state budget on military needs.
Speaking about Russia's ability to create problems far beyond Ukraine, the observer recalls that in the war in the Black Sea, the Kremlin lost mainly "very old or limited" ships. Overall, the Russian Navy "has not lost any of its combat capabilities in blue water," that is, in conducting combat operations in the open ocean.
To highlight this capability, in June, three Russian warships and a submarine entered Cuban waters and remained near Havana for several days. They were not equipped with nuclear weapons, but they did have high-precision hypersonic missiles with a range of several hundred miles. Putin also regularly and successfully intimidates the West with nuclear weapons, which Russia does indeed have.
"Putin's strategy looks increasingly plausible as public support for Ukraine has weakened in the United States and parts of Europe, where there is little hope that Russia could be defeated on the battlefield or that its economy would collapse under the weight of U.S. sanctions. The West was right to help Kyiv maintain its independence. It now needs to formulate a strong long-term strategy that would deter future Russian aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere - without the illusion that Moscow is a spent force," Hockstader writes.
