Russian President Vladimir Putin defended his war in Ukraine on Monday and likened the conflict to last century’s fight against Nazi Germany, but the Kremlin faces serious questions about its ability to replenish its ranks as casualties mount and its wartime tactics face growing scrutiny both at home and abroad.
Military observers believed Mr. Putin might use Monday’s high-profile address, which marked Russia’s “Victory Day” holiday celebrating the end of World War II, to formally declare war on Ukraine. Such a move would give Moscow new powers to launch a full-blown draft and call up young soldiers to replace the thousands killed or wounded so far in the 10-week campaign. It’s unclear how long Mr. Putin can sustain the war at its current pace without a major conscription push.
But the Russian president stopped short of that declaration, and the speech lacked claims to any major victories in a war that most foreign policy analysts say has exposed underlying weaknesses and logistical shortcomings in the Russian military machine.
Instead, Mr. Putin blamed the West for the conflict and said his country had little choice but to launch a “special military operation” to liberate Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
“Danger was increasing every day. Russia repelled this aggression in a preventative way. This was the only correct decision and it was a timely decision — the decision of an independent, sovereign and powerful nation,” Mr. Putin said.
During the speech, thousands of Russian troops and scores of armored combat vehicles were on display in Moscow’s Red Square to commemorate the Soviet Union’s victory over Adolf Hitler. Mr. Putin tried to draw a historical parallel between the World War II era and today’s war in Ukraine, blaming the West for a purported effort to “cancel these millennia-old values” embodied by the Russian state.
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“This moral degradation paved the way for cynical falsifications of the history of World War II, attempts to incite Russophobia, glorify traitors, mock the memory of their victims and wipe out the bravery of those who fought and suffered for the victory,” Mr. Putin said, according to his country’s state-run Tass News Agency.
Mr. Putin’s comments came against the backdrop of continuing conflict in Mariupol and in other key cities across southern and eastern Ukraine. The Russian military on Monday continued its assault on the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, where 2,000 Ukrainian fighters remain holed up as the final hurdle to full Russian control of the city.
Ukrainian fighters inside the sprawling complex vowed to fight on Monday even in the face of overwhelming odds.
“The enemy has a complete advantage in aviation and naval artillery,” Azov Regiment Chief of Staff Maj. Bohdan Krotevych told The Washington Times. “Our secret is very simple: we clearly understand that we are defending our homeland. We swore an oath to the Ukrainian people, and we will defend our state to the last bullet.”
Mr. Krotevych, who spoke with The Washington Times over the Telegram messaging app, said his unit has been inside the steel plant for two months, sleeping underground as Russia launches its barrage from the air and sea.
“First, they destroyed the positions with all-night artillery and aircraft [strikes], after which the enemy stormed them with infantry and tanks,” he said.
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Russian forces on Monday also fired cruise missiles at the strategically vital port city of Odesa, though local officials said that no civilians were killed.
In Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used Russia’s Victory Day celebration to vow his forces will ultimately triumph.
“Very soon there will be two Victory Days in Ukraine,” he said in a video address. “We are fighting for freedom, for our children, and therefore we will win.”
Balance of power
A Ukrainian victory seemed virtually impossible in the first few weeks of the war, when Russian forces invaded Ukraine from multiple directions and set their sights on the capital of Kyiv.
But the Russian offensive in northern Ukraine was quickly thwarted, partly due to Ukraine’s highly effective use of American-made Javelin anti-tank missiles and other weaponry, and partly because of Russia’s own logistical failures.
Russian forces abandoned the Kyiv campaign and instead turned their full attention to the disputed Donbas region. The change in strategy was largely viewed by most Western observers as a de facto admission of failure by Mr. Putin.
“This war is a disaster,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday” on Sunday. “You see the Russian military getting their ass handed to them on the battlefield in Ukraine.”
Moving forward, Russian military leaders face the daunting challenge of replacing soldiers at a level much higher than they anticipated. Specialists say that won’t be easy, especially given Mr. Putin’s apparent reluctance to declare war on Ukraine and institute a nationwide draft.
“When Putin launched his war in Ukraine, he as well as many in the West expected the campaign would be quick and involve few Russian casualties. But the action has now entered its third month, and Russian combat losses are estimated as high as 20,000 or more — figures that exceed Soviet losses in ten years of fighting in Afghanistan,” Paul Goble, a scholar with the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation, wrote in a recent piece for the foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor.
“Making up for those deaths is not easy, especially in the absence of a declaration of war,” he said. “Moreover, the Kremlin is encountering difficulties with recruiting fresh volunteers. It is having to offer them more money than ever before. And Russia faces problems if it shifts forces from other parts of the country given that the military is the last line of defense for the survival of the regime in the event of domestic political challenges.”
There are signs that domestic unrest in Russia could be growing. The Kremlin thus far has been mostly successful at controlling the narrative at home and blocking citizens’ access to news about the war, but Mr. Putin’s critics seem to have briefly broken through that wall on Monday.
Reuters reported that Russian satellite television menus were apparently hacked and temporarily included messages critical of the war effort.
“You have blood on your hands,” one of the messages said, according to screenshots obtained by Reuters.
Russian officials are facing increasing harassment abroad as well. Russia’s ambassador to Poland, Sergey Andreev, was reportedly splattered with red paint by protesters when he arrived at a Victory Day ceremony in Warsaw.
Such international outrage has surged as Russia’s wartime tactics have grown more brutal and as civilian casualties in Ukraine have spiked.
The latest example came over the weekend when a Russian airstrike destroyed a school in the eastern Ukrainian village of Bilohorivka, killing at least 60 people who were sheltering there.
Local officials said two boys, 11 and 14, also were killed in the attack.
Foreign intelligence officials say that in addition to Russia’s clear manpower challenges, there’s also growing evidence that its armed forces simply aren’t as accurate and precise as previously believed.
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has revealed shortcomings in its ability to conduct precision strikes at scale,” the British Ministry of Defense wrote in a Twitter post Monday. “Russia has subjected Ukraine’s towns and cities to intense and indiscriminate bombardments with little or no regard for civilian casualties.”
Joseph Clark and Mike Glenn contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire-service reports.