Putin Played a Long Game. It's Starting to Pay Off. WSJ
More than a decade before Russia’s armed forces poured over the border into Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin stood before world leaders and delivered a long, icy speech demanding a radical overhaul of the world order.
“We have reached that decisive moment when we must seriously think about the architecture of global security,” Putin said in the 2007 speech in Munich, accusing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization of breaking a promise by expanding into Eastern Europe and calling for an end to U.S. hegemony. Tensions between Moscow and the West grew in the years that followed. Russia sent its military into Georgia, Syria and Ukraine. The 2022 invasion of Ukraine spurred a broad Western effort to isolate Moscow and pushed new countries into the ranks of NATO.
Putin dug in as his military suffered battlefield setbacks and his economy was squeezed by Western sanctions. He played the long game. Now, that perseverance appears to be paying off as the world shifts decisively in his direction. The U.S. has paused military aid to Ukraine and called for an end to Moscow’s isolation. It is distancing itself from traditional allies in Europe.
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For Putin, the current moment is a vindication of the patient strategy he has honed during a quarter-century in power. The former KGB agent elevated from obscurity to lead Russia at the turn of the millennium has long railed against the U.S.-led world order ushered in by the Soviet collapse in 1991, which Putin has called “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” The sentiments Putin voiced in Munich stemmed from grievances toward the U.S. that deepened in 2004, according to Thomas Graham, a former White House adviser on Russia to former President George W. Bush. That year, a Western-backed revolution convulsed Ukraine, and Chechen separatists stormed a school in Russia’s North Caucasus region. Putin blamed the U.S. for encouraging the separatist movement.
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After Trump’s election victory last year, Putin launched a charm offensive. He echoed false statements about the 2020 election and praised Trump’s response to the attempt on his life in July. Now, with Trump bringing Moscow in from the cold and suspending crucial military assistance to Kyiv, Putin sees an opportunity to fundamentally change Russia’s position in the world, analysts say. What he wants is far more than a simple settlement to end the fighting. Putin’s goal is to turn Ukraine into a neutered state permanently vulnerable to Russian military aggression, and bar it from rearming with Western support. His ambition is to force NATO entirely out of Eastern Europe.
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