With the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989, the 70-year-old Soviet Empire was also falling apart, creating a major geopolitical earthquake. We were wondering what would replace the bipolar world balance that had permeated us for two generations. For almost 10 years, we were living in the unipolar world order, and then Vladimir Putin's Russia began to emerge from the ruins of the Soviet Empire, as it was thought to be over.

The war in Afghanistan, which lasted for many years and ended in a military failure, is considered to be one of the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union, among many other factors.

Russia, which took over the Soviet legacy, started to become a global power again, especially with the Putin administration, which has been in power for almost a quarter of a century now. With the bitter experience of the Afghanistan war, Russia made a great effort to rehabilitate its conventional war power, and we all believed that it was very successful in this regard. That's why we were all looking for more "strategic" reasons why the war, which started on Feb. 24, 2022, could not reach the targeted quick result. Because none of us could attribute such an obvious military failure to Russia.

A basic rule of strategy: The strategic mistakes made at the beginning of wars can not be corrected by tactical successes. Russia, after standing still for a month and a half despite all the destruction it caused in Ukraine, decided to withdraw and restart the war all over again from scratch. This time, the Russian general staff decided to form a center of gravity in the east, in Donbass, with 25% less than its initial pile.

However, despite the fresh beginning, it is hard to believe that the situation for Russia is getting worse, as claimed by reports from Ukraine. No one can match one of the two superpowers of the Cold War, but in the Ukraine war, which has been going on for more than two months, the Russian Federation has sunk to the bottom amid a fiasco that goes beyond the term "military failure." Moscow is facing an inexplicable dilemma with its supporters at home and abroad.

Various news coming from Donbass and cities such as Odessa, Dnipro and Kharkiv, where Russians continue to carry out almost randomly launched missile attacks and conduct irregular offensive operations of several intensities, make the fiasco even more unbelievable.

Russian soldiers are in the role of incompetent and unwanted occupiers in their former brothers' hometowns such as Mariupol, Kherson and Izum, which are under their control. Both sides seem to know very well that they will leave sooner or later. While the morale and motivation of the Ukrainian army and its people are high, despite all the pain, sorrow and trouble, the hope of raising the morale of the exhausted Russian soldiers seems to have vanished altogether, with spirits deteriorated after losing their friends, sleeping in the armored vehicles for months, and going back and forth unsuccessfully.

According to the news from the eastern and southern regions, where intense military conflicts continue, a number of Russian soldiers are taken prisoner every day. Russia has ordered churches to deliver agitated sermons to enlist new recruits for the army, while the Ukrainian volunteers are waiting in long queues in front of army recruitment offices. The Ukrainian government and parliament are working hard. They are even drafting post-war reconstruction and rehabilitation plans, and serious economic support is given to the internally displaced people.

In the Ukrainian part of Donetsk, the center of the second chapter of the war, the people and the local administration are clearing the ruins of the war, renewing the environment and renovating the towns as much as they can – without waiting for the end of the war. Most importantly, the farmers have started to plant without missing the season. In all cities and towns, large and small, people are reestablishing their daily routines as much as they can.

Media and the war

The wide opportunities offered by social media are used in this war at a level never seen before in any conflict. Especially in the channels established over social media networks with millions of subscribers, hundreds of news articles are shared 24 hours a day, which are very professionally managed and supported by visuals and videos provided by the subscribers in addition to the official declarations and news sites. There are a number of channels organized in this way, accurate information emerges from the overlapping news, without leaving much room for disinformation. The interesting thing is that the number of participants from Russia and Belarus in these channels is increasing day by day. The news is spreading there as well, and the tragicomic situation of Russia is gradually becoming unhidden from its own people.

Having lost more than 20,000 soldiers on the 65th day of the war, the Russian army has lost nearly 1,000 tanks, more than 500 air vehicles including aircraft, helicopters and drones; thousands of armored combatants and personnel carriers; countless heavy artillery weapons; artillery rocket systems; anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons, and more. The medium-long range missiles that have been launched since the beginning of the war and the bombardment material consumed are incalculable.

‘Honorable exit’

Russia is breaking all of the previous war casualty records. As the war drags on, the sought-after formula for Russia's "honorable exit" from this trouble is vanishing as a tremendous military success story is being written by Ukraine's army hand in hand with its nation, with the modern military equipment support provided by the West. Russia's hope of crowning May 9, the World War II Victory Day, with an achievement that can be shown as a success, is gradually disappearing.

As the size of the fiasco grows, Russia, which has become increasingly ridiculous in this unjust war it is engaged in with great claims, is rapidly drifting toward one of the two options.

The first possibility is using tactical nuclear weapons under any pretext, seeing that there is no way to cover up military failure. We don't even want to think about the consequences that such an option would cause and trigger.

The second option is that the Russian deep state, called "Siloviki" (formed by the elites of the active security organizations who are holding the real power in Russia), sees the dead end and heads for the last exit before hell. This would mean they replace Putin (who is a figurehead rather than a real decision-maker) through a well-planned coup by scapegoating him as if he were a "Hitler-like leader who was poisoned by power and dragged his people and the world into disaster." In this way, Russia might be able to get rid of the economic sanctions in a relatively shorter time, and – despite its damaged charisma – could still continue as a regional power, hence washing its hands of the trouble and letting the world take a deep breath.