Putin Has Committed His 4th Calamitous Error: The Daily Telegraph

Jeremy Warner, the assistant editor of Daily Telegraph has ridiculed Russian President Vladimir Putin for being a clumsy strategist and fumbling tactician for committing four grievous errors in succession in a column that appeared midday.

Photo Insert: It appears Vladimir Putin has overestimated the leverage of his hold over oil and gas supplies.

This time, the Kremlin miscalculated how Europe would react to its oil and gas blackmail threats and for this, Putin has embarrassed himself. Warner said “Putin’s miscalculations might be put down to failures in Russian intelligence, but there is also a more pervasive explanation.

Autocracies are very bad at understanding their own limitations. Regimes that punish dissent fast invariably fall victim to delusional self-belief and therefore error.”

Warner added: “First, he hugely underestimated the resolve and strength of the Ukrainian resistance. Secondly, he was seemingly unaware of the incompetence and ill-disciplined thuggishness of his own military. Their war crimes have so offended Western sensitivities that even Russlandversteher (Russia understander in English) Germany has now swung fully behind the democratic alliance. Thirdly, he thought the war would divide a declining and morally bankrupt West; instead, it has united and breathed new life into it. And, lastly, he overestimated the leverage of his hold over oil and gas supplies.”

In the event, Europe is adapting with previously unimaginable speed to the prospect of a world without Russian hydrocarbons. Berlin this week said it could end its dependence on Russian oil, if not yet gas, within “days,” threatening to ruinously deprive Russia of the mainstay of its economy.

An oligarch made rich by the Kremlin has already dumped Putin, arguing that he will lose and Russia will become more than a pariah on the world stage.

“I can’t see a way out even if Putin stopped now. This clown has wrecked his country. A united west can support Ukraine and keep pressure on murderous Putin but it is Russians, including his oligarchs, who will eventually bring him down,” Warner concluded.

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