For Putin, Invasion Is the Latest in a Long String of Failures in Ukraine

Some analysts consider that Mr. Putin is risking an analogous destiny. “He’ll lose Russia due to Ukraine,” mentioned Mr. Fishman, who has simply completed a e-book about why democracy didn’t take maintain in Russia after the Soviet collapse. Others are much less emphatic, particularly within the brief time period, and word the favored indicators of help for him inside Russia. Nonetheless, they warning that Mr. Putin is uncharacteristically enjoying a poker recreation with an unpredictable ending.

“This has been a significant failure in Europe’s greatest land struggle since 1945, and that may be a large failure,” mentioned Clifford Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, a political threat evaluation agency in Washington. “I’d not wager futures in Russian political stability over a five-year interval.”

Whereas Mr. Putin has publicly emphasised the safety menace posed by a westward leaning Ukraine as a cause for going to struggle, others say his deepest concern is the potential political fallout from dwelling subsequent door to a boisterous democracy with first rate financial prospects.

“Putin’s final nightmare is a shade revolution in Russia, and that’s the lens by means of which he views folks voting in Ukraine,” mentioned Mr. Kupchan. “As a result of it’s so shut, culturally, the specter of contagion as he perceives it’s even better.”

Mr. Putin’s successes are legion, particularly his complete profession arc from an obscure, midlevel intelligence agent — pressured to drive a taxi to make ends meet after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc — to changing into one of many longest-running leaders ever to occupy the Kremlin.

But in Ukraine, Mr. Putin, 69, has taken repeated missteps.

In 2004, he campaigned personally within the presidential election on behalf of his most popular candidate, Viktor F. Yanukovych, whom he twice congratulated on his win. However widespread accusations of voting fraud sparked a nationalist backlash and the Orange Revolution, with road protests culminating finally within the election of Viktor A. Yushchenko (who was poisoned in the course of the marketing campaign) as president in a Western-oriented authorities.