Editor’s note: We have extensively tracked the Russia vs Ukraine conflict since December. If you need more context, we highly recommend reading our Big Story on the historical roots of the conflict and this timely explainer on the effectiveness of economic sanctions, and the return of the Cold War. 

Researched by: Sara Varghese

Where we are now…

The death toll: The United Nations said that at least 136 civilians, including 13 children, have been killed—and 400 injured. The dead include a 21-year-old Indian student, Naveen Shekharappa Gyanagoudar from Karnataka. He was waiting in line to buy food when he was killed by Russian shelling in the city of Kharkiv (more on him here). There are also reports of 70 Ukrainian soldiers killed on a military base.

Point to note: Gyanagoudar’s death has made it all the more urgent to evacuate students from Ukraine. The Foreign Secretary insists that all Indians have already left Kyiv—and 2,000 have reportedly crossed into Poland. The big worry is Kharkiv—which is already under siege. Indian officials are waiting for a pause in the bombing to evacuate Indian citizens. Indian Express has more on why his death is a challenge to Indian diplomacy.

The refugees: The number of people who have fled Ukraine is now 660,000. The United Nations finally admitted that racism is a big problem on the borders—where Black, South Asian and Mediterranean refugees have been blocked from crossing. The UN plans to intervene to try to ensure that everybody receives equal treatment.

The state of the invasion: Russia intensified its bombing of cities. Missiles struck the historic Freedom Square in Kharkiv—and a TV tower in Kyiv, killing at least five civilians and forcing TV stations off the air. Also: The tower is next to Babyn Yar, where much of the Jewish population was massacred by the Nazis during World War II—which President Zelenskyy was quick to point out. Moscow is warning civilians in Kyiv to evacuate the city. Watch the footage below:

Assessing the state of play: US officials claim that Russian troops appear to be “risk averse”—and cite evidence of some soldiers surrendering to argue that troop morale is weak. That said, the Russians are advancing steadily in the South.

Also this: There is a 65-km convoy waiting just 25km (15 miles) from Kyiv's city centre. But it appears to have slowed down—and no one knows “whether it was regrouping, running out of fuel and food, or facing restive troops.” Experts fear it will mark more “brutal, tactless, unrestricted warfare.” They also point out that the convoy includes food supply trucks for soldiers and fuel for vehicles—along with miles upon miles of heavy artillery. And it may signal a shift in tactics—after an unsteady start plagued by logistical challenges:

“It reflects the fact that this invasion was in fact poorly planned, poorly, poorly prepared, and is being poorly conducted. That column reflects, in part, Russia scrambled to adjust to problems that they had created by the way that they prepared and conducted this attack.”

See the convoy below:

Surprising point to note: Despite being masters of misinformation, Russians seem to be losing the information war. Ukrainians are making masterful use of the internet to shape the global narrative around the invasion—and to rally civilian hackers to its cause.

Map to note: This BBC News map shows how much area Moscow currently controls: 

Elsewhere in the world…

Meanwhile, in Russia: There are faint signs of cracks between Putin and the wealthy billionaires who back him—but these are early days yet. Ordinary Russians are more isolated than ever—and face seeing their savings wiped out as the rouble continues to lose value. Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay and Google Pay have blocked Russian banks—which means they can’t make online payments. As one young man says, “I don't know what to do next. I am afraid we are turning into North Korea or Iran right now.”

How Moscow plans to cope:

“Former Treasury Department officials and sanctions experts expect Russia to try to mitigate the impact of the financial penalties by relying on energy sales and leaning on the country’s reserves in gold and Chinese currency. Putin also is expected to move funds through smaller banks and accounts of elite families not covered by the sanctions, deal in cryptocurrency and rely on Russia’s relationship with China.”

About those oil prices: The 31 member-countries of the International Energy Agency (IEA) have agreed to release 60 million barrels of oil from their emergency reserves—to prevent a global energy crisis. But OPEC has not followed suit.

Point to note: Even though India has not taken a stance against Russia, financial transactions of Indian banks have also come to an abrupt halt—after Russian banks were blocked from the SWIFT system of international payments. One solution may be to settle all payments in the rupee.

The ‘cancel Russia’ campaign: continued to gather steam—with the biggest US brands shunning the country. Apple stopped sales of iPhones and other products, while Google dropped Russian state publishers from its news, and Ford Motor suspended its local operations. And some are comparing Microsoft’s role in stopping cyber attacks on Ukraine—in partnership with US intelligence agencies—to Ford Motor’s role during WWII, when it used its auto factories to make Sherman tanks. 

Something to consider: The speed with which US companies have lined up to isolate and punish Russia and its citizens ought to give the rest of the world food for thought. It is also interesting to see how quickly all the big social media companies have moved to block Russian misinformation. As journalist Ryan Broderick sarcastically notes:

“Interesting to find out that during every radicalized election, every genocide, every riot around the world over the last 10 years, huge tech platforms could have swiftly identified disinformation and malicious propaganda and paused their distribution of it, but they didn't.”

Meanwhile, in Europe: Zelenskyy made a passionate video appeal to members of the European Parliament, asking them to admit Ukraine as a member of the European Union. He made his translator cry.

Meanwhile, at the UN: Hundreds of diplomats staged a walkout during Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s addresses to the UN Human Rights Council. Watch it below.

Looking ahead: Reading Putin’s mind

For over a month now, pundits and politicians have scrambled to answer the big question: What is Putin thinking? Their answers paint four different portraits of the Russian president—all of which could be potentially true. 

Putin the Deranged: Media reports have been filled with suggestions that the President has lost touch with reality. The Financial Times (paywall) laid out the ‘Vlad the Mad’ theme most bluntly—suggesting that his extreme isolation during the pandemic had driven him over the edge. Paranoid about Covid, Putin has severely limited human contact: “Even Putin’s closest advisers are rarely allowed to come within 10 feet without weeks of quarantine and testing.” The image below has become a symbol of his great distance both from his aides and reality:

That isolation has now become toxic, according to some experts:

"But we've seen him always before, no matter what he's done … we've always seen him act, perhaps wrongly and terribly, but always with a degree of cool rationality. … And it seems [that] has changed over the last two years. He's lost touch with reality."

Also this: As Putin’s popularity grew, he became convinced of his own invincibility:

“Putin’s used to being lucky. That’s very dangerous for a gambler, because he starts believing fate is on his side. When you play Russian roulette, you feel that God is on your side until the shot rings out.”

And his immediate circle shrank to handful of loyalists, making him more dictatorial and delusional:

“You eventually end up in a trap, because your inner circle tries to only tell you good news and what fits your views. Imagine Putin discussing the war in Ukraine with his generals—they’ll rapturously cry, ‘Yes, we can!’ Nobody will resist.”

A recent clip—capturing a Security Council conversation between Putin and his foreign intelligence chief—seemed to confirm that hypothesis:

Putin the Cold Warrior: Others say that the 69-year old Putin is the child of the Cold War—for whom the overnight collapse of the Soviet Union was traumatic and unacceptable:

“So it’s not about Russia. It’s about Putin. And it’s about this small circle of people around him who dominate this country. If you look at them, they are essentially the last gasp of Soviet elites, the people who didn’t just have their early childhood education in the Soviet times, but also their early career experiences. They were made. They thought they knew the way their life was going to be. And then all of a sudden the whole thing collapsed.”

A former KGB officer, Putin himself has spoken about painful memories of the collapse of the Berlin Wall:

“One night shortly after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Putin emerged from KGB headquarters to face an angry mob, then asked a nearby Soviet unit for support. The answer haunted him for years. “We can do nothing without an order from Moscow. And Moscow is silent” he recalled. ‘I had the feeling the country was no more. It was clear the Union was sick with a deathly, incurable disease called the paralysis of power.’”

Putin the Terrible: A variation on this theme is the hypothesis that Putin is just a thug who wants to be a modern-day czar—with the absolute power that title carries. His preference to settle matters with brute force runs deep—and is shaped by his roots:

“Born into a working-class Saint Petersburg family, Putin said in 2015, ‘If a fight is inevitable, you must strike first.’ One of his teachers, Vera Gurevich, has said that when a 14-year-old Putin broke one of his classmate’s legs, the future president said some ‘only understand force.’”

And what he yearns for is a return to imperialist not Communist glory: “His rejection of Ukrainian statehood and his denials of a separate Ukrainian nation are firmly rooted in the Czarist past and closely mirror statements and policies towards Ukraine from the days of the Russian Empire.”

Some Russian authors like Vladimir Sorokin compare him to Ivan the Terrible—who built what he calls the Pyramid of Power—and argue that Putin shares the same mediaeval view of the country:

“...the only way to rule the hugeness of Russia was by becoming an occupier of this enormous zone. The occupying power had to be strong, cruel, unpredictable and incomprehensible to the people. The people should have no choice but to obey and worship it. And a single person sits at the peak of this dark pyramid, a single person possessing absolute power and a right to all.”

Putin the Old Man: One of the explanations for the inexplicable decision to invade Ukraine now—after Russia has endured two brutal pandemic years—is that Putin feels he is running out of time. Nearing 70, he is obsessed with his historical legacy—and often asks historians, “How are they going to be writing about me in 100 years time?” And Ukraine is his answer to that question:

“I think from his point of view, you know, he’s 69. He can rule for only some years to come politically, but he’s probably getting old and he’s getting tired. It’s fairly obvious that he is tired and bored with much of the job. The last thing he wants is for his legacy in the history books to be the guy who lost Ukraine, the guy who rolled over and let NATO and the West have their way.”

Saving the world from Putin’s rage…

Wounded and dangerous: The fact remains that the US and the world have to figure out a way to deal with Putin. US intelligence claims he is already more prone to angry outbursts, and is no longer the “calculating and cold” KGB operative—because the invasion hasn’t gone to plan. Any further setbacks may make Putin even more erratic—especially if he feels cornered or humiliated. As Senator Marc Rubio tweeted: 

“This is the most dangerous moment in 60 years. #Putin’s is facing a humiliating military fiasco & he has triggered extraordinary consequences on #Russia’s economy & people that will not be easy to reverse. And his only options to reset this imbalance are catastrophic ones.”

An off ramp for Putin: The US and its allies seem to understand that they have to give the Russian President a face-saving way out of the invasion. And they are pinning their hopes on the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, according to one European official:

"It's like the Sun Tzu thing of giving someone a golden bridge to retreat across. How do you get him to go in a different direction?... Putin ... doesn't normally back down. But he also controls the information environment in his own country to such an extent that if he does, he can cover his tracks. ... So I think there is room for him to de-escalate—and that's certainly what we're pressing for."

Of course, all this depends on what concessions Zelenskyy is prepared to make—and his own propensity to play with fire. All those appeals to join the EU can’t be helping Putin’s mood or decision-making. 

The bottomline: President Biden wanted to turn Russia into a “pariah” for invading Ukraine. Well, like mom always said, be careful what you wish for…

Reading list

• New York Times has more on the dreaded convoy lurking outside Kyiv. 
• New York Times via The Telegraph looks at Microsoft’s intervention into the invasion as a partner of the US.
• Financial Times has an excellent analysis of Putin’s growing isolation but it's behind a paywall.
• Al Jazeera looks at his obsession with Ukraine, while this Atlantic Council essay explains his obsession with Russia’s czarist past.
• Mark Galeotti talks to Vox (podcast plus transcript) about Putin’s obsession with his legacy and the lost empire.
• Vladimir Sorokin in The Guardian pens an eloquent essay placing Putin in the context of Russia’s twisted cultural legacy of authoritarianism.
• NBC News and Axios have more on the dangers of a cornered Putin.
• The Atlantic explains why Putin often uses crude language in his speeches.