With Victory Day Looming, The West Has 10 Days To Target Putin

Russian military parades are a big deal. Ever since the Red Army Parade of November 7, 1941, when Russian forces marched through Red Square and straight into an epic battle to save Moscow, Russia has employed commemorative military parades to boost Russian nationalism and the Russian state.

With Moscow’s big Victory Day parade set for May 9, commemorating the 1945 surrender of Nazi Germany, observers expect Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, to rattle some sabers. Putin has nothing else to offer in his ongoing effort to “de-Nazify” Ukraine—no major victories or battlefield trophies are available.

Escalation is Putin’s only option. But Putin has few sabers left outside of Russia’s strategic arsenal and the threat of an unpopular full-scale national mobilization.

Odds are that Putin will rattle both by declaring a symbolic War on the West.

Russia’s Cupboard Is Bare

Ukraine was meant to be a showcase for Russia’s advanced weaponry and authoritarian government. But Ukraine has demonstrated that both are hollow.

Russian military systems have failed in Ukraine, and, even worse for Russia, much of the market supporting ongoing global investment in Russia’s Soviet-era arsenal have disappeared. Throughout the world, surplus Soviet weapons are flowing into Ukraine. Ammunition shortages and missing Soviet-era replacement parts are spooking potential new customers. In contrast, western weapons, which often create headlines over costs and foibles during testing, are literally blowing away the competition.

Putin’s over-reach in Ukraine has only strengthened global appreciation for “rules-based” order. The loose cooperative defense organizations that, from the outside, seemed weak, have, again, demonstrated their resiliency. In contrast to NATO’s tenacity, Russia’s coercive efforts have proven less than effective. While Belarus frantically works to distance itself from Russia’s disastrous invasion, Finland and Sweden are defying Russia’s bluster and openly—almost gleefully—preparing to join NATO.

Putin’s “strong-man” appeal—his government of choice—has fallen short to Ukraine’s cohesion around an unexpectedly tough, democratically-elected everyman. His goal of using Ukraine as a springboard for an authoritarian resurgence in France, Canada and beyond has failed. Instead, his international cadre of pro-authoritarian agitators are watching their funding and influence crumble away.

Oligarchs, the showy public agents of Russia’s economy, are on the run. Their assets are under threat, and as they race to hide their yachts and foreign families, their corrosive efforts to promote corruption are on full display.

Even Russia’s big cadre of espionage-oriented diplomats are being thinned out, thrown out of their host countries and sent home.

There’s nothing left for Putin but an appeal to Russian nationalism and Russian nihilism.

World War III Looms

While the parade won’t have quite the drama of Joseph Stalin’s desperate 1941 march from the Red Square parade ground into battle, Putin will certainly try to follow Stalin’s playbook by appealing to the “Russian Motherland” and shifting blame for his current debacle back on the “West”.

At the May 9 parade, Putin may even declare the symbolic start of World War III, muddying the fact that the West’s irritation starts and ends with Putin himself.

Putin, not Russia, started the Ukraine invasion.

A last, desperate play at the dice makes sense. Putin’s public speech in Red Square offers the Russian President his best—and potentially final—chance for preserving his own survival. A constant showman, in the brief moment he holds the public stage, Putin will do everything possible to build upon the myth that Russia and the West are locked in a mortal struggle.

It is scary. Putin will likely use his bully pulpit threaten nuclear conflict and hope the subsequent uproar will overshadow his implementation of a deeply unpopular and disruptive national mobilization.

But it is only an increasingly impotent Putin—not Russia—that is locked in a mortal struggle with the West.

In the days leading up to the May 9 parade, the West must amplify their message that Russia’s problem is an increasingly desperate and reckless President. With Putin either impotent, powerless, or—better yet—gone, Russia’s rationale for the war in Ukraine and conflict with the West fades.

The West’s war is with Putin, and with Putin alone. Failure to make that fact clear only plays into Putin’s hands. Between now and May 9, the West must reiterate, stand behind, and then amplify President Joe Biden’s now disavowed quip that Putin “cannot remain in power.”

All the showy and “aspirational” elements of Putin’s power—his mistresses, his extended family abroad, and Putin’s Western properties must be publicly sanctioned, seized and sold off. Between now and May 9, the West can do far more to explicitly incentivize Putin’s oligarchs and soldiers to move against their former patron. It is high time to encourage those with the most to lose to step forward. Either they can take a public role in reminding their social circles that the West’s fight is more with Putin than with Russia itself, or they can take matters into their own hands—just as Egyptian soldiers did in 1981, killing Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat while he presided over Egypt’s annual victory parade.

The West’s ongoing failure to explicitly call out, isolate, and target the reckless Russian strong-man is inexplicable. Fear of causing Putin distemper is a particularly Washingtonian fear, bred from consuming Washington DC newsletter gossip one too many times. Washington’s reflexive caution only gives Putin greater opportunity to redefine the ongoing conflict, and, in time, build sufficient justification that Russia faces an existential threat, and allow Putin to tinker with thoughts of global nuclear annihilation, indulging his well-known nihilistic tendencies.

It is time for an intervention. Over the next week, the West must be quite clear in broadcasting over every possible means that only Putin—and not Russia—faces an existential threat. It is time for Russia to send Putin packing.