The war in Ukraine is continuing multi-dimensionally. One of these dimensions is the media. According to Russian news sources, the Western world is applying severe shortages. The news from the front is reported from one side only. Worse is the fact that fabricated news aimed at propaganda are in abundance. Considering the latest picture, we see that Russia failed to achieve its demands, its army fell apart, and it had to withdraw from many of the areas it overtook previously. 

 This picture is partly correct. It is clear that Russian intelligence is not working well, and that logistics connections in particular have a hitch. It is making strategic mistakes as well. Projections, when the war started, was that Russia would target the Donbas area. But Russia opened numerous fronts. It attacked Kyiv as well and failed. It guaranteed one-sidedly in meeting in Istanbul that it will withdraw from Kyiv. As is known, the Istanbul meetings ended in failure. Normally, Russia was expected to continue attacks on Kyiv, but that did not happen. Using the goodwill excuse, Russia drew its forces around Kyiv to the east. In a sense, it did what it should do first, and last. Despite all the hitches, it took 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory with the military attacks it conducted in the east. Is this success? If evaluated based on the maximal expectations Russia declared at the start, such as taking full control over all of Ukraine, no. But looking at it in a more tangible manner, there are certain positive matters on Russia’s account. Though it is not recognized internationally, it joined a large portion of Donbas to the Russian homeland. In addition, it largely limited Ukraine’s presence in the Black Sea. Following Crimea, it spread through Mariupol and Herson. The Sea of Azov is now under full Russian control. If in the next stage, it occupies Odessa as well, it can be considered to have substantially achieved its objective. But this is the critical aspect anyway. If Russia does occupy Odesa, and completely detaches Ukraine from the Black Sea, then it will have reached its goal. A Ukraine detached from the Black Sea will be no different from Moldova. Is this easy? No, but this winter, it seems like Russia is planning to fortify Donbas, and focus on Odesa. 

One other issue seems to be that Russia’s military power is not facilitated correctly. Up until now, Russia used its state-of-the-art developed and highly destructive weapons on the front in limitation. This was an intelligence mistake. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s sources must have told him that he would be able to pull this off using outdated weapons. The picture, however, changes after the annexations. As any Ukraine attacks on Luhansk and Donetsk will be considered attacks on Russia, Russia announced it will execute its own war doctrine. This indicates that Russia will show its true power and give intense responses. We will see whether the Ukraine military gained the capacity to meet this. Under any circumstance, we are gradually approaching a NATO-Russia war – even though it is yet to be named so. If Ukraine is unable to withstand this heavy attack from Russia, we can estimate that the war’s circumference may expand to include Poland, followed by Belarus, and Moldova.  

I will not be discussing concerns regarding the use of nuclear weapons for now. Russia will not resort to this in the first stage. If the Ukrainian army is well equipped and fortified by NATO, and can thus meet Russia’s modern weapons, and starts harming the Russian army, that is when it may resort to this. But this is not expected in the first stage. 

The Anglo-American bloc is not hanging around doing nothing. It is making stricter existing sanctions against Russia and adding new ones to them. A new front is being opened in the Caucasus through Georgia. Armenia is on reserve for now. There is no need to additionally note that this process closely concerns Türkiye. The Anglo-American bloc did not say much about Türkiye’s neutrality policy until now. However, they started to signal that they will react differently from now on. We will not be surprised if they demand this winter – through a threat-like discourse – that Türkiye apply the sanction rules meticulously. The U.S. shortly already warned the business and finance groups in Türkiye to end their current capital activities with Russia. They neither want Russian capital entering Türkiye nor the Turkish businesspeople to continue buying assets that close the voids arising in Russian markets. These prohibitions can possibly be bypassed in one way or another. But it seems Türkiye will suffer a lot of headaches in this regard. 

A very harsh winter awaits Europe – and Türkiye, even if not as bad. We shall wait and see.