Russia a strategic loser in Ukraine

 Fortune:

Russia has already “strategically lost” the war in Ukraine and is a “more diminished power” on the world stage as a result of the invasion, according to the U.K.’s defense chief.

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, who heads up the British armed forces, told PA Media in an interview published Friday that the Russian president had used 25% of his country’s army but achieved only “tiny” gains.

“This is a dreadful mistake by Russia,” he said. “Russia will never take control of Ukraine. Russia has strategically lost already.”

Radakin explained that Moscow had been forced to abandon its objectives of seizing control of most Ukrainian cities, noting that Russian forces were vulnerable because they were running out of people and military hardware.

“Any notion that this is a success for Russia is nonsense. Russia is failing,” he told PA.

“It might be getting some tactical successes over the last few weeks, and those might continue for the next few weeks—but Russia is losing strategically.”
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“Russia has categorically failed to achieve any of the objectives it set out to achieve in the initial stage of the invasion,” Tuck said in a phone call on Friday. “It obviously intended to try and regain control of Ukraine, and of course that hasn’t happened—if anything it’s pushed Ukraine further away.”

He noted that many of Moscow’s other objectives—like the weakening of NATO and the demonstration of Russia’s military power—had also been counterproductive.

One of Russia’s key demands as it amassed thousands of troops at the border it shares with Ukraine before invading its neighbor was that Ukraine should never be permitted to join NATO, the world’s most powerful military alliance.

NATO and the U.S. both said that such a request could not be accommodated, and since the invasion of Ukraine in late February, the alliance has stepped up its presence in eastern Europe while both Sweden and Finland have taken steps to join the organization.

Jonathan Eyal, associate director of strategic research partnerships at defense think tank the Royal United Services Institute, told Fortune on Friday that ultimately, Putin’s strategic objective in Ukraine was to re-create the old Soviet Empire by reimposing control over Ukraine.

“Russia has lost strategically if we assume, as looks likely, that the objective of Putin was to take over Ukraine and transform it into a satellite state under Russian influence,” he said. “So in that respect, Russia has failed strategically. It is now blatantly obvious that Ukraine may not regain full control of all its territory, but it will remain an independent state, and more importantly it will remain a state that will challenge Russian influence in the region.”
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I agree that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been a strategic disaster and that Russia is now a much weaker power than it was before it launched this unnecessary war.  It has lost up to a third of its combat machinery and is pulling equipment from a previous era out of storage.  Its combat losses of troops have also been significant and the war has exposed Russia's weaknesses on several levels including leadership.