Putin's Failing Ukraine Scorecard

By Paul Gregory (Hoover Institution and University of Houston)

Press and diplomatic observers appear to have reached a consensus that Vladimir Putin has brilliantly outmaneuvered Europe and the United States with his New Type of War – a mix of masked military aggression, proxy fighters, bluffing with troop maneuvers, intensive propaganda, and the use of human shields. This consensus is wrong.

My scorecard for the half year of hostilities shows that Putin is losing not only the battle for Ukraine but also his drive for the restoration of Russian empire. Unless the West pulls Putin’s chestnuts from the fire with its incessant demands for a cease fire, the Ukrainian theater will go from bad to worse for Putin.

Separatists May Be Exaggerating Ukraine Referendum Turnout By 300%

By Paul Gregory (Hoover Institution and University of Houston)

Separatists in Luhansk oblast have officially announced that 96 percent of eligible voters approved the referendum on independence (See: Ukrainska Pravda). According to the KyivPost election update, separatist officials are reporting 89 percent for seceding and 10 percent against in Donetsk Oblast. Donetsk and Luhansk make up the lion’s share of the contested Donbass region.

East Ukraine separatists are celebrating what they claim is a huge electoral victory in the May 11 referendum. These Crimean-scale election results are pure falsification.  I report here more believable results that show one third the turnout of the separatist claims and confirm earlier polling data that show 70 percent of East Ukrainians want to keep a united Ukraine.

Is Putin's New Type Of War In Ukraine Failing?

By Paul Gregory (Hoover Institution and University of Houston)

As the Kiev EuroMaidan demonstrations were gathering momentum in late February, Anne Applebaum prophetically wrote: "Putin doesn't need to invade Ukraine. He can destabilize it from the Kremlin." So far, Applebaum's insight has proven correct. What we have seen is a covert war of destabilization, rather than an invasion by conventional means. While we focus on the 40,000 troops amassed on the border, Putin has, all the while, been conducting a war of another kind in ten strategic cities and towns in eastern Ukraine.