The Daily Populous Thursday December 4th, 2025 morning edition
Authored by inews.co.uk and submitted by theipaper

He plays psychological games because it is one of the few hands he has left

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Vladimir Putin only has one song and he sings it over and over again. There are no verses, only a badly constructed chorus. It is a song of threats, belligerence and crybaby victimhood. He sang it in 2022. He sings it again today. And it has no more truth now than it had back then.

On 24 February 2022, in a televised speech launching the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he first threatened a nuclear attack in the event of Western interference. “Russia will respond immediately,” he said, “and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history.” He has continued to make this threat on a regular, near-monthly basis over the ensuing years, most recently in July.

Yesterday, he was up to the same old trick. First, he threatened to “cut Ukraine off from the sea” in response to drone attacks on Russian tankers. Then he threatened a Russian invasion of Europe. “We’re not going to war with Europe,” he said. “I’ve said that a hundred times. But if Europe suddenly wants to fight us and starts, we’re ready right now.”

It’s all nonsense. In reality, Putin cannot sever Ukraine’s connection to the sea, because it still controls major ports including Odesa. In reality, Putin already went to war with Europe when he invaded a European country. In reality, he is not “ready right now”. He uses baseless threats because they are one of his few remaining weapons.

Putin is at his strongest when people believe what he says. He is a far more successful manipulator of Western psychology than he is a conqueror of Ukrainian defensive positions. It was his triumph of persuasion, for instance, which almost won the war for Russia earlier this year, when Donald Trump ended up shouting at Volodymyr Zelensky that “if [Putin] wants it, he will destroy you”.

A Ukrainian soldier at the front line. Putin ‘is a far more successful manipulator of Western psychology than he is a conqueror of Ukrainian defensive positions’, says Ian Dunt (Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP)

It is also what undermines Europe’s willingness to stand up to Putin. Russia has presented any move designed to support Ukraine as an obstacle to peace. This is, of course, nonsense. If Putin wanted to end the war tomorrow he could do so. But there are people who are either gullible enough to believe it or mendacious enough that they pretend to be.

Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever has held up the EU’s use of frozen Russian state assets for weeks, depriving Ukraine of funding security and Europe of geopolitical leverage. “Hastily moving forward on the proposed reparations loan scheme would have, as collateral damage, that we as EU are effectively preventing reaching an eventual peace deal,” he said in a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen – cowardly and disingenuous in roughly equal measure.

Ukraine is ultimately two wars at once. One takes place on the battlefield and is objective. The other takes place in people’s minds and is subjective. It is about the perception of momentum and strength, rather than its reality.

On the battlefield, Russia has the advantage, but it is a modest one. It is stuck making tiny incremental gains, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives. Figures in the Trump administration act as if this is a vindication for Putin. In fact, it is a very far cry from what he set out to do in 2022. He wanted to take over Ukraine and fold it into Russia. He has failed. Instead, a much smaller and weaker country has held the line against his advance.

Over and over again, Putin’s boosterism about his military opportunities has proved false. Cities which he insisted would fall in the summer of 2024, and then again in the summer of 2025, still stand. The eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk were annexed by Russia in autumn 2022 in advance of their occupation. That occupation has never taken place. Now he asks to be handed on a plate what he could not secure by force.

At his current rate of progress, Putin would need to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of Russian lives to advance, all so he can govern a ruined wasteland and meet the guerrilla Ukrainian resistance which would follow. Far from a triumph, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is perhaps the single most foolhardy decision taken by a Russian leader since Joseph Stalin decided that Adolf Hitler was a reliable ally.

The geopolitical debate over Ukraine is now presented as a closed club of strong leaders. This is also false. In fact, Europe has a decisive hand in what transpires, even if Trump will not admit it and Europeans have decided not to emphasise it.

Reports suggest the US could recognise Russian gains in a peace process. That will mean little if Europe does not also do so. Reports also suggest the US will invite Russia into the G7. That will mean nothing if the rest of the G7 does not agree to it.

Everyone seems to believe that Europe will meekly go where Trump demands but that is simply not how things have played out. Instead, European leaders – with Keir Starmer in a leading role – have persistently manoeuvred the situation to prevent an unacceptable peace being inflicted on Ukraine.

The recent 28-point plan Trump considered getting behind – which in some cases contained passages which appear to have been literally translated from Russian – was killed when Europe swung against it, leading to a plan with the most egregious elements removed.

Putin plays psychological games because it is one of the few hands he has left. It allows him to pretend that he is in a position of strength when in fact he has waded so far into the mud that he can no longer extract himself safely.

The man who won his popularity by creating a well-off Russian middle class has now put his country on a war footing. He is trying to shield the population from the ensuing hardship, but there is a limit to how long he can do so. Growth is in decline, inflation is soaring, federal budgets are breaking down, the Russian stock market is suffering.

Putin is as strong as the West allows him to be through its cowardice and as weak as the West wishes him to be through its bravery. Every time he comes out with another threat, we should see it is a sign of desperation, not superiority.

sciguy52 on December 4th, 2025 at 01:09 UTC »

Step back and look at what the Russian military is doing in Ukraine and tell me this is a military that can take on Europe much less NATO. Looking at the big picture, Russia is reduced to trying to infiltrate a few soldiers not wearing uniforms behind the Ukrainian line. Unfortunatly Ukraine is lacking man power to plug all holes in the line so this can happen. That is a problem for Ukraine, not for Europe or NATO. NATO is a different beast entirely and Russia trying to infiltrate a few soldiers not wearing uniforms behind a NATO line would not work. Why? That line would be moving constantly forward as the Russians fell back. NATO can engage in maneuver warfare and Russia is degraded to the point of the simplest form of warfare it can manage, all the while engaging in war crimes by doing so. This Russian military is not a threat to Europe. Their current military shows no abilities of a modern military and NATO most definitely has this down. They can threaten all they like, looking at their current capabilities those threats are quite empty.

ITAdministratorHB on December 3rd, 2025 at 19:36 UTC »

The increasing stream of these desperate articles that feel detatched from reality strike me as a more worrying sign.

stonezdota on December 3rd, 2025 at 18:54 UTC »

Recently I thought this war swayed to the Russians and Ukraine was eager to get a ceasefire.

Now Russia is actually thr more desparate side?