Influential American geopolitical analyst George Friedman compared Russia's current position in the war with Ukraine to the situation of the United States in Vietnam in the 1960s. According to him, the Kremlin finds itself in the same trap as the Lyndon Johnson administration: the war is already lost, but admitting it is politically impossible.
George Friedman said this in an interview for the Geopolitical Futures.
"States reach a point where they cannot win a war, but cannot afford to admit it. This is precisely the position Russia has been in for several years now," Friedman noted. According to him, the war continues for years not because there is hope for victory, but because for Putin, admitting failure means political death.
The analyst emphasized the scale of the Kremlin's failure: "This is the region they're fighting for, but it's a very small part of Ukraine. Essentially - slightly less than 25% after four years of fighting, and the vaunted Russian army could not defeat the Ukrainians." He reminded that Russia's main goal - occupation of all of Ukraine and capture of Kyiv - failed completely.
Friedman pointed to a key contradiction: "As long as he's fighting, he's a wartime president, and maybe he'll get lucky. But as soon as he admits that the war is over and this is all he got for all the dead and all the damage to the economy, the question arises about his political fate."
The expert also noted that the Russian economy is severely weakened - Russia ranks only ninth in the world by economy size and 45th-50th in GDP per capita. "They lost four years of economic development. They spent a huge portion of Russia's wealth on this. And he did not achieve his goal," Friedman summarized.
In the analyst's opinion, this is precisely why it is critically important for Putin to get at least something at the negotiations - not for the military value of the territory, but to be able to claim some achievement after four years of war.
