Today (21 September), exactly seven months after he made a televised address foreshadowing the invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has given another speech to his country doubling down on the war. The Russian president announced a “partial mobilisation”, with the armed forces calling up its reserves, on the spurious ground that they would ensure territorial integrity and protect”people in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine – territories that will hold dubious votes on joining Russia in the coming days. Putin also issued a barely veiled nuclear threat to Ukraine and to the West: “If its territorial integrity is threatened Russia will use all the means at its disposal. This is not a bluff.” Like his address in February, three days before his forces invaded Ukraine, the speech signalled an alarming escalation.
It has been clear for some time that Putin is running out of options to avoid a humiliating defeat in Ukraine. His forces are rapidly losing ground in the country’s north-east and coming under renewed pressure on the southern and eastern fronts. Some analysts wondered whether the astonishing success of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in recent weeks might finally make clear to Putin that he cannot win the war, and that he should seek, at a minimum, a temporary halt to the fighting. This week it became clear that would not happen.
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