Popular opinion now says that Vladimir Putin miscalculated catastrophically. He thought Russian-speaking Ukrainians would greet his troops. But no.

He hoped that he would divide NATO. But the union has become even more consolidated. He was sure that he made the Russian economy immune to sanctions. But in fact, his deeds destroyed her.. He expected China to come to the rescue. However, Beijing is weighing its bets. Putin was also sure that the modernized Russian army would turn the Ukrainian army into mincemeat.. And now Ukrainian troops are really mincing Russian forces, at least on some fronts..

Pulitzer Prize winner Bret Stevens writes about this in an article for the New York Times.. Putin's miscalculations cast doubt on his strategic judgment and mental state. Who even gives him advice? He lost touch with reality? He is sick? mentally ill?

" Something is clearly wrong with him,” warns former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The Russian siege of Mariupol and Kharkov — two Russian-speaking cities that Putin allegedly wanted to “liberate” from Ukrainian oppression — is reminiscent of what the Nazis did to Warsaw, or Putin himself to the Chechen city of Grozny..

Several analysts compared him to a cornered rat, made even more dangerous by losing control of events.. They offer to give him a safe way out of the disaster he created himself.. And almost the whole world lashed out at President Joe Biden with criticism for his words in Poland: “For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power.”.

The popular belief may very well be true.. It fully justifies the Western strategy of supporting the defense of Ukraine. The same opinion tends to conclude that the best result of this war is for Putin to find some way out in which he could “save face”. For example, he may be allowed to leave another piece of Ukrainian territory, make a Ukrainian promise to remain a neutral country, or lift some sanctions.. But if popular belief is wrong? That how the West in this way only again plays along with Putin?

This possibility stems from the powerful recollection of Charlotte Gall of the New York Times, who covered the Russian siege of Grozny during the first war in Chechnya in the mid-1990s.. Early on in the war, motivated Chechens drove out a Russian armored brigade, shocking Moscow.. The Russians regrouped and demolished all of Grozny using artillery and air power.. Russia is acting according to the same scenario today.

“When Western military analysts claim that Putin cannot win the war with Ukraine, what they really mean is that he cannot win fairly.. And when is Putin playing honestly? "

“There is a whole next stage in Putin’s scenario, known as the “Chechen” one.. Once Russian forces gained a foothold in Chechnya, they destroyed any resistance through arrests and filtration camps, as well as by expanding local collaborators,” Gall says in the article..

One can imagine for a moment that Putin never set out to conquer all of Ukraine.. His real goal from the very beginning was to seize the energy-rich Ukrainian east, where the largest deposits of natural gas in Europe (after Norway) remain.. You can connect this with the occupation of the Crimea, in the water area near which there are also deposits, with Donetsk and Luhansk with their mines, as well as Putin's desire to control the entire Ukrainian coast. And then the ambitions of the Russian autocrat become clear. He is not so much interested in uniting the Russian-speaking space as in establishing Russian energy dominance.

“Putin is committing a huge heist under the guise of an invasion,” says Canadian energy expert David Knight Legg..

As for the rest of Ukraine, which will remain landlocked, the West will ensure that this territory becomes an exemplary example of prosperity. Over time, a figure like Viktor Orban will become the president of Ukraine and begin to imitate the autocratic political model that Putin really liked.. If this analysis is correct, then Putin has not miscalculated as much as his critics say..

Such an approach could also explain his strategy of destroying civilians.. So Moscow is not only trying to compensate for the complete incompetence of its army, but to increase pressure on Zelensky so that he would sooner agree with Putin’s demands: for territorial concessions and Ukrainian military neutrality. The West is also looking for opportunities to de-escalate. Moreover, he convinced himself that crazy Putin is ready to use nuclear weapons. Inside Russia, the war has already benefited the Russian autocrat. Many members of the professional middle class have already begun to flee the country.

And these are the people who most actively support opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The remnants of the free press were completely eliminated. And maybe it's forever. The humiliation of the Russian army in Ukraine made it possible to carry out purges and eliminate the possibility of a coup from within.

This alternative analysis of Putin's success may be wrong. But, again, in war, in politics and in life, it is always smarter to treat the enemy as a cunning fox, and not a crazy fool..