The world has progressed beyond the need for Russian power

Big news seems to be coming fast and furious these days. We’re still waiting on the midterm results, and?I already wrote about the crypto crash, so today I think I’ll write about the Ukraine war. In the last few days, Ukraine has taken the key city of Kherson in the south of the country, in a battle that?started as a planned Russian withdrawal?and is turning into a catastrophic rout.

First, the basic military situation. Kherson city is the provincial capital of one of the four Ukrainian provinces that Vladimir Putin recently claimed ownership of. The city was conquered by the Russians early in the war, but it’s on the opposite side of the very wide Dnipro river from Russian supply lines, so there was always a good chance that Ukraine would take it back. For months now, Ukraine has been hammering at Russian positions around Kherson, using the famous HIMARS rocket launchers and other artillery donated by the West. Finally,?taking huge losses, the Russians decided to withdraw to the opposite bank of the river. Here’s a picture of how fast the Ukrainians are recovering territory:

But as happens all too often with Putin’s Russia, the withdrawal was executed chaotically and poorly, allowing the Ukrainians to?inflict tremendous casualties?on the Russian forces as they try to escape across the Dnipro.?Panicked testimonials?are now appearing on social media as Russians sit trapped under a hail of Ukrainian artillery. If you want to follow these fast-moving developments, you can?follow my Ukraine War list on Twitter.

Anyway, the war is far from over. Russia is still wreaking havoc on Ukrainian infrastructure with missile strikes, other territories might be harder to retake, and Russia can always try more nuclear threats. But at this point one conclusion seems clear — other than the nuclear arsenal it inherited from its Soviet predecessors, Putin’s Russia has?nothing that makes it worthy of being called a “superpower”, or even a “great power” at all.

The failure of Russia’s war effort is the clearest proof of how far the country has fallen since Soviet days. Russia has about 3.5 times Ukraine’s population, a far higher per capita GDP, and truly massive stores of equipment and ammo. Before the war, its military was believed to be the world’s third most powerful, and had seemingly proven its mettle by crushing Chechnya, quickly subduing Georgia, and largely pacifying Syria.