Putin's Choice
Russian President Vladimir Putin can only respond to NATO's drone攻势 by intensifying firepower counterattacks, aiming to destroy NATO's drone attack bases in Ukraine. However, drone attack bases can be dispersed, and even production plants do not have to be located within Ukraine. NATO has established a transnational system for drone production. Due to the relatively low technological requirements, there is no need to concentrate production in large factories.
With the industrial chain dispersed outside Ukraine, Russia has no way to concentrate on destroying its production and launch bases, nor does it dare to directly attack NATO's drone production bases. The routes for NATO drone swarms to invade Russia include crossing borders from the Baltic states and Finland, with electronic signal command and relay transmission also taking place outside Ukraine. Unless Russia attacks facilities within NATO territory, it cannot prevent drone swarms from invading everywhere.
Although Putin has used maximum firepower to bombard Kyiv and key facilities within Ukraine, if he cannot force NATO to submit or directly occupy Kyiv, and if he cannot defeat the NATO coalition forces in Ukraine on the ground in a conventional war, NATO's dense drone attacks from Ukraine will correspondingly increase pressure on Russian facilities and cities, and the severity of attacks will only escalate. Once NATO expands the scope of its strikes, Russia will enter a state of emergency. Crimea has been isolated, with energy and material supplies blocked, resulting in a large-scale exodus of ethnic Russians from Crimea and Ukrainian regions to inland Russia, creating a dire situation. If this spreads within Russia, the political and economic impact will be severe.
Even if the Russian army occupies Kyiv and forces Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into exile as a government-in-exile, as long as NATO insists that Ukraine remains a battlefield, the war will not end. On the contrary, NATO could use the pretext of Ukrainian resistance against Russia, and in addition to regular forces still contending with Russian troops in some areas, infiltration and raids behind enemy lines will not cease, and the tactic of dense drone attacks will persist, increasing the damage and disruption to Russia's wartime economy.
A war of attrition between NATO and Russia favors NATO. If the war continues, damage to Russia's infrastructure, economy, and civilian life will worsen. Even if Putin occupies Ukraine, NATO's strikes can still bring down his regime. For NATO, losing Ukraine in exchange for the collapse of Putin's regime in Russia is still a very worthwhile deal.
Unless Russia finds a way to counter the dense drone attacks or forces NATO to a ceasefire and negotiations, the crisis facing Russia cannot be resolved. Negotiations would require China's mediation and would inevitably force Putin to make significant concessions to NATO. Can Russia's current political and economic situation withstand compromises in negotiations? For Putin, tactical nuclear weapons might be a tool to reverse the disadvantage on the battlefield. But once nuclear weapons appear, the nature of the Ukraine war will change dramatically.
[Institute President Chan Man-hung]
