Putin has embarked Russia on a bloody war of choice against a nation that many Russians consider to be their ethnic and cultural cousin. This war is maximalist: Putin is trying to “demilitarize and denazify” Ukraine, he says, and this surely involves the destruction of the Ukrainian government and the occupation of large parts of Ukraine.
Putin’s Conscript Problem
After he denied that Russian draftees were fighting in Ukraine, military officials said otherwise. It exacerbates an already sensitive issue.
