conducted with president zelenskyy. all this was done with purpose even though it seems almost paranoid that they are waging a war and that people have to know about this, right? because here s the thing putin chose his language very carefully. even though he is obviously an authoritarian leader without any real political opposition, the fact is that public opinion still does matter. and war total war and mobilization for it are costly endeavors. they often require extremely difficult, unpleasant sacrifices from people. but putin wanted to have it both ways. right? that was the plan here. he wanted a quick, strategic blitzkrieg to takeout zelenskyy, to encircle kyiv and install a more favorable government. then russian troops could return home triumphant, with some sort of puppet regime next door and without much change in day-to-day life for the russian people, all a nice and tidy special military operation. obviously, that did not happen. in fact, do you know that putin
mcfaul, he s an msnbc international affairs analyst. ambassador mcfaul, i was very pleased to read your optimistic assessment today about this war. you maintain that vladimir putin has already lost this war. yes, and i use the word war precisely not battle lawrence. i think we need to go back to where we were, talking to you two months ago. remember, on the eve of this war, putin said he was going to take all of ukraine because they re not a real people, they re just russians with accents. he was going to swallow it up whole. he failed in that objective. number two, he said he s going to denazify a country, he was going to kill zelenskyy or chased him out of the country, put in his own puppet regime. he filled with that objective. three, destroy the entirely the increasing in military, he failed with that objective. for, he lost the battle of kyiv. and lost the battle for other major cities so far, he failed with that objective, so now
international affairs analyst. ambassador mcfaul, i was very pleased to read your optimistic assessment today about this war. you maintain that vladimir putin has already lost this war. yes, and i use the word war precisely, not battle, lawrence. i think we need to go back to where we were, talking to you two months ago. remember, on the eve of this war, putin said he was going to take all of ukraine because they re not a real people, they re just russians with accents. he was going to swallow it up whole. he failed in that objective. number two, he said he s going to denazify a country, he was going to kill zelenskyy or chase him out of the country, put in his own puppet regime. he failed with that objective. three, destroy entirely the ukrainian military, he failed with that objective. four, he lost the battle of kyiv. and lost the battle for other major cities so far, he failed with that objective, so now he s down to the fifth and final objective, which is their
fellow commanders, fellow former commanders who know this area very well? this was supposed to be sort of a restart of the war for put putin and russia. didn t take the capital. didn t install a puppet regime. now focusing on the donbas. how sit going in these early days? we re back to the traditional russian way of war, which is to grind it out. to terrorize the population. to throw mass at the problem. putin has a better opportunity here than he did trying to execute, which his forces were clearly unable to do competently, the kind of blitzkrieg you just talked about. thank god. partly, that s because of their own incompetence. partly, it is because we were even then getting weapons in the hands of the ukrainians. partly, it is simply the spirit and the will of the ukrainians to resist. now, when you re being ground down, day after day, it s a
the un secretary general antonio guterres announced plans to travel to moscow on tuesday, for talks with president putin. he is also planning a separate meeting with ukraine s president zelensky. it comes as a russian general seemed to suggest a new battle plan, which would effectively cut ukraine off from its black sea coastline. it would see russian forces advancing towards a pro moscow enclave in moldova. moldova has summoned the russian ambassador there to explain. our diplomatic correspondent, paul adams, has more on russia s strategy. the invasion was premised on a quick assault of the capital and the installation of a puppet regime. that engine work, so the focus shifted to the donbas, extending those areas held by pro russian separatists and securing that land corridor. that s why