<\/p>\n
Paul Craig Roberts<\/p>\n
Yulia Shapovalova, Moscow correspondent for\u00a0Al Jazeera,<\/i>\u00a0reports that Pusillinamous\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Putin\u2019s ever-widening war has, as I said it would, expanded deep into Russia far from the Donbas battlefield.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Shapovalova reports \u201cThe crisis is deep,\u201d as civilian fuel shortages worsen.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Ukraine\u2019s successful strikes on Russian refineries and fuel storage have imperiled supply and resulted in gasoline rationing throughout the country and long lines as Russians wait hours for their rationed supply. What Putin has achieved is a reduction in Russians\u2019 confidence in their government.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/7\/2\/the-crisis-is-deep-the-view-from-russia-as-fuel-shortages-worsen<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Russia has had to halt export sales of gasoline and jet fuel, and lower the fuel grade standards for gasoline. In Crimea, a state of emergency has been declared.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Concerns are being expressed that to insure adequate fuel supply for agricultural harvesting could result in industry shutdowns.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Russia has had to purchase 80,000 tons of gasoline from India and hopes to be able to import 400,000 tonnes of gasoline each month from wherever Russia can get it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>This clearly will not help the Russian balance of payments, which the pro-American Russian bank director will use for more punishment for Russians.<\/p>\n Confronted with a genuine crisis, what is Putin\u2019s response?<\/p>\n \u201cI would say it is not critical,\u201d says Russia\u2019s failed war leader.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Little doubt that Russia\u2019s population\u2019s response to Putin is \u201cnot critical for who?\u201d \u201cNot critical for those of us who cannot rely on transportation because you refuse to win a war?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u201cNot critical for those of us whose choices might be to be laid off from our jobs or face a food shortage?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u201cNot critical to those of us who will face more punishments from your central bank director to pass the cost of the Russian trade deficit you are causing to us?\u201d<\/p>\n Clearly, Putin and his incompetent Kremlin entourage are, while in the middle of an ever-widening and ever-unsuccessful war, destroying the confidence of the Russian people in the Russian government. The American Zionist Neoconservatives seem to have Putin in their camp, aiding and abetting Washington\u2019s hegemony.<\/p>\n Why would Putin do this?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Why would he be allowed to do this?<\/p>\n Recently I asked, tongue in cheek, \u201cIs Putin an Unaware Agent of the West,\u201d and linked to Gilbert Doctorow\u2019s article raising a similar question.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Both articles were translated and published in a Russian newspaper, which served notice that the Russian media is no longer reticent and is asking pertinent questions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>We are now half way into the fifth year of Putin fighting a war that he has shown no intention of winning.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The cause of such extraordinary failure is difficult to discern.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Is the cause the alliance of Kirill Dmitriev, Putin\u2019s main negotiator, with the Russian billionaire oligarchs and the West and the advice of Putin\u2019s pro-West central bank director who intentionally left $300 billion of Russian bank reserves where the West could seize it?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Have pro-Western forces in Russia made it difficult for Putin to represent Russian interests?<\/p>\n I can\u2019t say, but at least this is an explanation why a militarily powerful country would fail to win a conflict with a third rate military power after 4.5 years, much longer than it took Stalin\u2019s Red Army to defeat the mighty German Wehrmacht.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Putin now ranks as the worst failure of a military leader in world history.<\/p>\n Frederica Marsi, also a correspondent for\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/i>, reports: \u201cUkrainian drone attacks on energy infrastructure are intensifying fuel shortages in Russia, triggering a rare admission from President Vladimir Putin of the gravity of the situation. In unusually candid public remarks to a meeting of senior officials on Sunday, Putin explicitly acknowledged that Ukrainian strikes had led to fuel rationing.\u201d\u00a0https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/6\/30\/how-severe-is-russias-energy-shortage-because-of-ukrainian-strikes<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But what Putin refuses to acknowledge is that the Ukrainian strikes on Russia\u00a0are war.\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u00a0Putin calls increasingly successful Ukrainian strikes on Russia, aided and abetted by NATO and Washington, \u201cterrorist attacks on our civilian targets and infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, Russia is not at war.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Russia is merely experiencing terrorist attacks. Like the US attack on the Nord Sea Pipeline.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Like the US attack on the Russian strategic bombing fleet.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Like the US attack on Putin\u2019s home intended to kill him.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>There is no war here folks.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Just terrorist actions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As Putin has redefined war as random terrorist acts, he doesn\u2019t have to win a war, just ration gasoline, run up the Russian trade deficit with gasoline imports, accept Russian civilian casualties as a result of \u201cterrorist activities,\u201d and do nothing to win a war. \u00a0The failure to win the war is demoralizing the Russian people and discrediting Russia as a military power, a discrediting that is bringing on a much larger and more dangerous war with the West, a war that will be nuclear.<\/p>\n So readers, tell me, why is Putin destroying Russia\u2019s military reputation and leaving the Russian people ever more open to attack? What can possibly explain the total failure of such a powerful military force as Russia to win a war with a third rate power after 4.5 years?<\/p>\n The only possible answer is the total failure of Russian leadership.<\/p>\n