The War Putin Can’t Win and Can’t End: How Ukraine Could Become Putin’s Afghanistan

 

Putin can’t win in Ukraine, but he’s terrified to stop—because he remembers Afghanistan, and he knows a lost war doesn’t just kill soldiers, it can kill regimes.

You would think that after years of blood, smoke, and broken cities, a war that neither side can decisively win would simply burn itself out. That logic works in textbooks. It does not work in Moscow. Let me be blunt. Vladimir Putin is caught in a vice of his own making in the Russia-Ukraine war that he started in February 2022. He cannot win. And believe me, he knows it by now. But he also fears peace. That fear may be stronger than his fear of defeat.

Look at the battlefield math. During the Great Patriotic War from 1941 to 1945, the Red Army advanced about 1,600 km from Moscow to Berlin. In Ukraine, after years of fighting, Russian forces in Donetsk have advanced roughly 60 km. That is not blitzkrieg. That is trench warfare with drones. The modern battlefield is a 10–30 km “kill zone,” watched by UAVs, satellites, and operators who see everything. Massing troops now is like gathering under a spotlight and shouting, “Here we are.” Precision artillery and drones shred formations before they move.

Russia has mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops since 2022. Western intelligence estimates place Russian casualties in the hundreds of thousands, killed and wounded combined. Moscow does not publish clear numbers, but even conservative estimates show staggering losses. Recruitment now relies heavily on cash incentives. Since June 2025, according to Re: Russia, the average sign-on bonus has risen by 0.5 million roubles to 2.43 million roubles, about $32,000. When a state must pay more and more to fill ranks, patriotism is not enough. When the price of blood goes up, the market is sick.

The war costs about 5.1 trillion roubles a year, roughly 90% of the federal budget deficit. Defense spending now stands near 8% of GDP. Oil revenues, the backbone of Russia’s economy, face sanctions and volatile prices. Debt payments are rising. The civilian economy is shrinking. Yes, Russia adapts. Yes, it survives sanctions. But survival is not victory.

Putin can still strike Ukrainian cities and power grids. Missiles and drones can spread fear. But aerial terror rarely forces surrender. Britain survived the Blitz. Ukraine has endured years of bombardment. Europe has not abandoned Kyiv. Support actually increased in the past year, even as U.S. direct financing reportedly fell by about 99% compared to peak levels. Ukraine is now less dependent on American intelligence than it was in 2022. The war has hardened it.

So why not cut a deal? Because peace is not just a diplomatic act. For Putin, peace is political risk. And here is where Afghanistan’s ghost walks into the room. The Soviet-Afghan War began on December 24, 1979. Soviet troops entered Afghanistan expecting a short intervention. It ended on February 15, 1989, when the last Soviet forces withdrew under General Boris Gromov. About 15,000 Soviet soldiers were killed. More than 1m Afghans died. The war drained billions of dollars. It weakened the Soviet economy and shattered morale at home. Veterans returned angry. The mujahideen gained strength. Within 2 years, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed.

Putin watched that collapse from inside the KGB. He has called the fall of the USSR the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century. He knows what a losing war can do to a regime. Afghanistan did not collapse the Soviet Union alone, but it accelerated decay. It exposed weakness. It bled credibility. It created veterans who asked hard questions.

Now imagine Putin ending the Ukraine war without a clear victory. Russian soldiers return home. Thousands of families ask about lost sons and unpaid “coffin money.” The economy, already bent under military spending, must shift from war footing to peace. Factories that make shells must find new products. Soldiers must find jobs. In Russian history, disgruntled veterans have destabilized regimes, from the turbulence before 1917 to the bitterness after Afghanistan in the 1980s. Peace could open political space for criticism. And criticism, in an authoritarian system, is dynamite.

Putin likely fears that stopping the war would trigger the very questions he cannot control. Why did we invade? Why did we lose so many men? Why are we dependent on China for financial and military support? Why is the economy weaker?

A dictator can survive war by invoking emergency. War centralizes power. War justifies repression. War rallies nationalism. Peace demands accountability. And accountability is dangerous. This is the vice. He cannot win decisively. The 60 km advance proves that. He cannot easily escalate without greater costs. NATO support, sanctions, and modern technology limit his room. Yet he fears peace because Afghanistan showed what happens when a long, costly war ends without glory.

In the 1980s, Soviet leaders faced a bitter truth. The Afghan war had not strengthened the empire; it hollowed it out. Putin does not want to be the man who presides over a similar unraveling. He wants to be remembered as a tsar who restored Russian greatness, not as a ruler who bled it dry.

But here is the brutal irony. The longer the war continues, the more it eats Russia alive. The budget strain deepens. The casualty count grows. The international isolation hardens. The risk of internal instability rises. A war meant to project strength becomes a mirror reflecting weakness.

Can external pressure end it? Targeting Russia’s shadow oil fleet and punishing buyers of sanctioned oil could squeeze revenue. Countering propaganda that the West seeks to destroy Russia could reduce nationalist fear. Exposing the myth of inevitable Russian victory could erode public support. No leader likes to back a loser.

Yet in the end, it comes down to pain. How much pain is Putin willing to inflict on Ukraine? How much pain are Russians willing to endure? Afghanistan taught that a regime can fight for years and still lose its footing at home.

Putin is trapped. He cannot win in the way he imagined in 2022. He cannot easily stop without risking his grip on power. So he drags the war forward, hoping for a Ukrainian collapse that has not come.

History is watching. Afghanistan’s shadow is long. And every day the war grinds on, that shadow grows darker over Moscow.

 

This article stands on its own, but some readers may also enjoy the titles in my “Brief Book Series”. Read it here on Google Play: Brief Book Series.