August 30, 2024: After the Russians invaded Ukraine in early 2022, the invaders suffered unexpectedly heavy casualties. Then the war continued and is now in its third year. In Russian occupied areas of Ukraine, military-age men were eventually forced to accept Russian citizenship documents and then conscripted into the Russian army. These men were warned that if they refused to join, they would be shot and things would go badly for their families. This caused resistance among the civilians in these areas who were told that the Special Military Operation in Ukraine would be over quickly and the lives of civilians, especially military age men, would not be disturbed. That was all a lie. The war is now in its third year and the civilians in Russia as well as those in Russian occupied territories are angry at Vladimir Putin for the war and the way it was mishandled. Putin promised a short war, but 30 months of combat is definitely not short. Worse, the fighting has been stalemated for over a year. Then, in early August 2024, Ukrainian forces invaded the Kurk region of Russia. The Ukrainians encountered no resistance at first and over a hundred thousand Russian civilians fled. This fighting took place in northern Ukraine while most of the fighting since early 2022 has been in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Ukraine forces suffered few casualties because there were few Russian soldiers, or even police, to oppose them. This Ukrainian incursion was completely unexpected and when Russian forces did arrive, they didn’t counterattack but instead got to work building defensive structures like trenches for defending troops and ditches deep enough to prevent tanks or other vehicles from crossing. Apparently the Russians in the Kursk region have no defenses against Ukrainian drones, which closely monitor Russian operations and make attacks on targets that could pose a danger to Ukrainian troops. The Ukrainian drones also began attacks against military targets in the Kursk region ten days before the August 6 Ukrainian advance into Russia.

This Ukrainian attack not only surprised Russians in general but made it clear that most of Russia’s border with Ukraine was similarly undefended.

While the Ukrainians were invading Russia, fighting along the thousand kilometer-long front line intensified in eastern Ukraine where Russian attacks since May have left over 50,000 Russian soldiers dead or disabled in attacks that gained little or no ground. Russia currently has about 170,000 troops inside Ukraine, most of them in the east where Russian and Ukrainian forces have been confronting each other since 2014. Ukraine’s military numbers at least 500,000, though that includes many support and supply troops whose Russian equivalents are outside Ukraine. 2014 was when Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula and sought to attack out of the portions of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces in eastern Ukraine. Russia always insisted that the fighting in the east was between separatist citizens of Luhansk and Donetsk who wanted their provinces to become part of Russia. That was always a lie but the Russians continue to support it with propaganda and increasing military aid and Russian soldiers who, initially, pretended to be Ukrainian separatists. The Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine are no longer pretending to be Ukrainian separatists but the fighting in this area has quieted down in the last year.

The war had been mostly a stalemate for a year prior to the August 6 Ukrainian invasion of Russia. Inside Russia, civilian and military leaders are criticizing Vladimir Putin and his failed effort to conquer Ukraine. The Ukrainian invasion of Russia made Putin’s failure seem even worse. Putin called the Ukrainian advance into Russia a terrorist act while his invasion of Ukraine was an effort to reincorporate the Ukrainian region into Russia. Putin insists Ukraine is not an independent country but a troublesome part of Russia. Putin blames NATO nations for supporting this illegal Ukrainian separatism.

Ukrainians point out that Ukraine was one of the fourteen new countries to appear when the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991. Back then, the Russian government went along with the dissolution. The areas that separated from Russia never wanted to be part of Russia and by the late 1980s the Russian government was bankrupt and on the brink of a ruinous civil war. The alternative to that was allowing the regions that did not want to be part of a Russian empire, and put together two hundred years ago and maintained by coercion and force, to become independent. Vladimir Putin, a KGB lieutenant colonel when the Soviet Union broke up, considered this development a disaster that should be rectified. Putin became the leader of Russia in 1999 and has ruled ever since. His tenure as Russian leader is exceeded only by that of Josef Stalin, who ruled Russia from 1924 until his death in 1953. Between the 1950s and the 1980s, Russia was ruled by a series of inept communist leaders whose failures led to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Putin finally revived the Russian government in 1999 but his attempts to reassemble the Soviet Union have come to nothing. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 brought with it economic sanctions by NATO nations that have crippled the Russian economy. NATO aid to the Ukrainian military led to the defeat of the Russian 2022 invasion. Putin blames all his problems on NATO and believes that NATO is trying to weaken and isolate Russia. Putin ignores the fact that it was his aggressive actions that got Russia into so much trouble. With the recent Ukrainian invasion of Russia, many Russians are calling for Putin to resign or be removed and replaced by a ruler who will work for the benefit of Russia. Putin’s actions have brought only death and misery to Russia. Nearly half a million Russian soldiers have been killed, wounded or missing inside Ukraine since 2022 and now the Ukrainians are invading Russia and the Russian military is having a hard time stopping the invaders.

Putin has lost power and prestige since 2022 and now Russians and Ukrainians both agree that everyone would be better off if Putin were gone.