Putin A Paper Tiger

A well-known tale involves Russian President Vladimir Putin and a rat. As a child, Putin chased a rat throughout his family's apartment building, eventually catching it in a corner, according to his memoirs.

Photo Insert: Russian President Vladimir Putin at a meeting with State Duma leaders and party faction heads

The rat then lunged out, attacking and biting the young Putin, Maria Snegovaya and Brian Witmore wrote for Foreign Policy magazine.

This experience, in Putin’s words, taught him that if cornered, “you have to fight to the finish line in every fight” and “you need to assume that there is no retreat.”

Western officials have frequently referenced this incident as evidence that Putin reportedly never backs down and is especially deadly when cornered. Many in the West believe that if Putin is locked in a humiliating loss in Ukraine, he would resort to more harsh and deadly measures, including the use of chemical or nuclear weapons.

This notion appears to be driving Western pressure on Ukraine to cede land and make concessions in order to end the conflict with Russia.

The notion that Putin will never back down has one flaw. It's false, and it's part of the mythology that the Russian president has created around himself, which has been all-too-easily absorbed by many Western politicians, according to Snegovaya and Witmore. Putin frequently backs down rather than responding with further escalatory measures.

For example, when Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 fighter jet in Syria in November 2015, Putin's reaction was muted. Moscow placed minor trade sanctions on Turkish imports and halted Russian holiday packages to Turkey.

Several confrontations between the US military and Russia-backed Wagner forces also occurred but did not result in a substantial escalation from Putin. A US air attack in Syria in 2018 killed six Russian Wagner mercenaries.

In February 2018, a frontal conflict between Russian mercenaries and US troops occurred in the Battle of Khasham, which resulted in the deaths of many Russian military contractors from the Wagner Group. Russia lost around 200 men in all. Not only did Putin not retaliate in these situations, but there was no response from the Kremlin at all.

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