Russian President Vladimir Putin has not achieved a single one of his strategic objectives after nearly 1,000 days of full-scale war against Ukraine, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in his op-ed published by Foreign Affairs on Nov. 1.
"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky didn’t flee. Kyiv didn’t fall. And Ukraine didn’t fold," the Pentagon chief said.
Putin's original goals in his full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched in early 2022 were to “liberate the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, "demilitarize and denazify" the country which in the Kremlin's eyes, envisioned the removal of its Jewish president, and the occupation of its capital city Kyiv.
After swiftly failing to achieve these goals, with the exception of Russian forces occupying all of Luhansk Oblast, Putin was forced to lower his ambitions and said Russia's "main goal" was to capture all of Ukraine's eastern Donbas area that also includes the adjacent Donetsk Oblast.
According to Austin, Russia has paid "a staggering price for Putin’s imperial folly," with more than $200 billion squandered. Russia has lost almost 700,000 troops killed and injured since Feb. 2022, Ukraine's General Staff reported.
Austin's article was published days ahead of the U.S. presidential election. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump questioned future U.S. military assistance for Ukraine while insisting he can broker a swift peace agreement.
In the meantime, Ukraine is facing one of Russia's "most powerful offensives" since the beginning of the all-out war, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Nov. 2.
Moscow's forces continue to press forward on its offensives across the eastern front, primarily on the Toretsk, Kurakhove, and Pokrovsk axes in Donetsk Oblast, where outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian soldiers are forced to withdraw little by little.
Austin called Putin's invasion a warning, describing it as a sneak preview of "a world built by tyrants and thugs."
"So we face a hinge in history," the U.S. Defense Secretary said. "If Ukraine falls under Putin’s boot, all of Europe will fall under Putin’s shadow."
Owen Racer
