Year in Review: Vladimir Putin’s biggest setbacks in 2022
Brady Knox
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When Russian President Vladimir Putin shocked the world with an all-out invasion of Ukraine in February, he expected a quick victory that would bring military glory to Russia. Instead, 10 months later, Putin’s army is demoralized, with an estimated 100,000 Russian troops dead, injured, or deserted and Russia’s reputation as a military power in tatters. Putin failed to take Kyiv, and a defiant Ukraine projects that victory is on the horizon with the help of world allies.
Here’s a look back at Putin’s biggest setbacks in 2022 in his invasion of Ukraine.
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International backlash
Perhaps Putin’s greatest miscalculation of the war was his underestimation of how far the collective West would go to oppose his invasion. Almost instantly, a coalition of Western countries, led by the United States, unleashed a string of sanctions not seen since World War II.
Aiming to cripple Russia’s economy in order to make waging war impossible and to spur civil revolts against the Kremlin, huge swathes of the country’s economy were wiped out in weeks. Russia was cut off from SWIFT, the international banking system, a move that destroyed Western investment in the country.
Sanctions have been painful for Russia, but so far, the country has managed to weather the financial restrictions without a full economic collapse.
Military embarrassments
Russia’s inability to take Kyiv, as originally expected by Western observers, culminated in its withdrawal from the northern regions of Ukraine in April. This was a major embarrassment for Putin and the first sign that Ukraine had a chance at victory in the conflict after all. However, despite Russian casualties, the Russian army was able to withdraw back across the Belorussian border in good order without being directly defeated.
That all changed in September with a surprise Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kharkiv Oblast. The demoralized Russian troops, primarily consisting of militia soldiers from the pro-Russian areas in the Donbas region, folded in mere days, resulting in a total collapse of the front in the northeast. In just a single week, Ukrainian troops retook hundreds of square miles of territory, culminating in their seizure of the strategically important city of Lyman.
The crushing defeat sent Russian nationalists, Putin’s main power base, into a rage. Key allies such as Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov brought into question the competency of the Russian Ministry of Defense. One official even urged Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to kill himself out of shame.
Two months later, the Russian military experienced yet another major blow to its prestige, this time in Kherson.
Putin appointed Gen. Sergey Surovikin as the head of all Russian forces in Ukraine in early October, resulting in a change in leadership and strategy that seemed to stabilize the front and reverse Russia’s fortunes. However, the flip side of Surovikin’s appointment was a series of military decisions that proved to be public relations nightmares. The general requested that all Russian troops be withdrawn from the right bank of the Dnieper River in favor of better defensible positions on the left bank. Putin agreed, and Russia once again ceded hundreds of square miles to the Ukrainian armed forces.
The withdrawal forfeited the crown jewel of the invasion: the city of Kherson, the only regional capital Russia had managed to seize. Adding insult to injury was that Russia had to abandon an area Putin had declared just months prior as an integral part of Russia. As Ukrainian forces were met by jubilant crowds in Kherson, Putin endured perhaps his greatest embarrassment of the entire war. Russia retreated with its army intact, but its honor was tarnished.
Crimean bridge bombing
On Oct. 8, a sudden explosion blew apart a section of the Kerch Strait Bridge, which links Crimea with the Russian mainland, killing four civilians. The blatant attack on a symbol of Putin’s Russia, built to commemorate the peninsula’s annexation, was another huge blow to Russia’s prestige. Memes and celebrations broke out in Ukraine as Putin once again looked weak after such an attack on Russian soil.
Though Ukraine didn’t acknowledge its role in the explosion, most analysts have little doubt that it was the work of Ukrainian intelligence. Perhaps greater than any other act in the war so far, the bombing showed Russians that they could no longer fully rely on the Kremlin for security.
Loss of international prestige
Much of the post-Soviet sphere has been kept in line by virtue of Russia’s ability to project its power across the region. The violence that gripped several Soviet countries immediately following the USSR’s collapse has been mostly unheard of, lest any one country draw the ire of the Russian military.
Ukraine’s ability to hold off the Russian military resulted in a major loss of prestige and power. In the wake of a shaky Russia, two wars broke out in Russia’s backyard: renewed fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan and a limited war between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Adding insult to injury, Russian troops were present in both conflict areas, casting doubt on the Russian military’s ability to bring peace through the projection of strength.
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Though both conflicts quickly fizzled out, the image of fighting breaking out in Russia’s backyard, in the vicinity of Russian troops, further contributed to an image of a weakening Russia.
Canceling year-end press conference
Putin finished the year with one final humiliation: refusing to do his usual end-of-the-year press conference in which he talks directly with the public, sometimes for hours on end, a tradition that has been a part of his rule since 2001. Whatever his reasoning, the refusal has been taken as a sign internationally confirming that he is afraid of speaking to the public over the failure of his invasion or confirming rumors of his ailing health.