Poland

Let’s start with a simple, and, I think, uncontroversial observation: Russia has no incentive to bomb farmers in Poland, and every incentive not to.

Most obviously, targeting civilians on NATO soil is a good way (the best way!) to put yourself at war with NATO or, in Russia’s case, pull NATO into a war you’re already in, and currently losing.

Over the past several years, a lot of Westerners were inadvertently co-opted into Kremlin propaganda through various channels, and as such find it difficult to come to terms with the current state of the conflict in Ukraine. A steady diet of memes depicting Vladimir Putin riding bears or fishing for great whites, perpetuated the notion that the Russian leader is something other than he is — namely, an aging KGB operative who presides over what I’m fond of calling the rickety remnants of a failed experiment.

Russia isn’t a powerful state. Its economy is tiny. Its power to project is confined to a pitiable client state in Belarus, war-torn Syria, Chechnya and, to a lesser, but still meaningful, extent, Iran, which isn’t anyone’s idea of a utopia. You could conjure a handful of additional examples if you really wanted to, but the point is just that the list of Russian subordinates is a reflection of Russia itself. Exercising soft power is difficult when your one-dimensional economy is smaller than three US states (it’s half the size of California) and your culture has been hijacked by an intelligence operative who, according to Joe Biden’s account of a 2011 meeting at the Kremlin, proudly conceded that he might’ve been born without a soul.

The Russian military’s performance in Syria gave the world a false impression. I’ve been over this on countless occasions. The Russians didn’t fight that ground war. Hezbollah did, alongside a confederation of fierce Shiite militias overseen by the Quds Force. Shiite militias love to fight Sunni extremists. It’s what they do. They view it as a religious imperative, in the most literal sense possible. They’re also very good at it. It’s thus no surprise that Russia was successful in restoring Bashar al-Assad. Sergei Surovikin’s “success” in Syria was actually Qassem Soleimani’s success.

If you knew that, you should’ve known Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine was doomed, but I’ll confess that being familiar with Russia’s campaign in Syria was insufficient to prepare many observers for the abject failure of Putin’s forces to seize and hold territory in Ukraine. Most military experts assumed Russia would have little difficulty in the early stages of the conflict. Perhaps later, once it devolved into a war of attrition, things would deteriorate, but the initial assumption was that Kyiv would fall within days (or weeks), Russia would install a puppet government and then take it from there, likely to no good end. In other words: It’d be Iraq. Only on an even more dubious pretext. (Say what you will about imaginary WMDs, but that was nothing compared to Putin’s contention that Volodymyr Zelensky, a career comedian who’s Jewish, is a secret Nazi.)

But that’s not how things turned out. Russia got bogged down outside of Kyiv almost immediately, and the rest is (unfolding) history. Putin eventually called in Surovikin to run the Syria playbook, beginning early last month with what Putin described as “mass strikes” on civilian infrastructure in retaliation for a Ukrainian operation that partially collapsed the Kerch Strait Bridge. On Tuesday, Russia unleashed the most intense aerial barrage since the October 10 volley. Somewhere along the way, an errant projectile hit a grain-processing plant in Przewodow, a Polish farming town less than five miles from Ukraine’s border.

I eschewed (studiously, as it turns out) the temptation to weigh in immediately in these pages (although I did suggest, on social media, that irrespective of what happened, it might be time for the White House to instruct Putin to leave Ukraine proper under threat of NATO retaliation against Russian positions and the Black Sea Fleet). “Studiously” because, after a tense 12 hours, it was determined that it probably wasn’t a Russian-fired missile that killed two in Przewodow, but rather a Ukrainian air defense missile instead.

“We have no evidence at the moment that it was a rocket launched by Russian forces,” Andrzej Duda told reporters. “However, there are many indications that it was a missile that was used by Ukraine’s anti-missile defense.” “Most likely, this was an unfortunate accident,” he added.

Biden was quick to cast doubt Tuesday on the idea that Russia would’ve deliberately fired at Poland. On Wednesday, speaking to reporters from the G20 meeting in Indonesia, he said it was “unlikely in the lines of the trajectory that it was fired from Russia.” Later, during a meeting with NATO and other US allies, Biden said the blast was caused by Kyiv’s air defense systems.

Ukraine initially denied one of its missiles might’ve accidentally caused the blast, as did Russia. Kyiv and the Kremlin did agree on one thing. Both called it an escalation, indicative of, on one hand, Zelensky sensing an opportunity to procure more advanced air defense systems and more NATO military support, and, on the other, Moscow grasping at straws for any excuse to play victim and perpetuate the manifestly ridiculous notion that despite having invaded Ukraine, Ukraine is in fact the nefarious aggressor in this ongoing, exceedingly macabre fiasco.

Belgium’s defense minister on Wednesday said that “pieces of Russian missiles and a Ukrainian interception missile” landed in Poland, again suggestive of an air defense accident.

The important point is that this wouldn’t have happened had Russia not been firing 100 missiles at Ukraine in another desperation move to terrorize the country into submission. Whether it’s two dead farmers in Poland or an escalation in Ukraine that demands a NATO response (e.g., the deployment of a tactical nuclear weapon), this war is almost guaranteed to push NATO to the brink of direct conflict with Putin’s Russia.

As alluded to above, that eventuality, were it to manifest, would end poorly for Russia, no matter what you might’ve heard from the Kremlin’s propaganda echo chamber which, unfortunately, is allowed to exist on Western social media. Just days ago, Russia was chased out of occupied Kherson, which would’ve been embarrassing enough on its own for Putin, but was made even more so by the fact that Kherson was annexed by the Kremlin less than two months ago.

“I think they ran because they were in danger,” Zelensky said, of the Russian soldiers who abandoned the city. During the same remarks, delivered from Kherson, Zelensky said victory there might represent “the beginning of the end of the war.”

In case it’s not clear enough, Putin needs to cut his losses. That’s an objective assessment. You don’t need to be a military strategist to come to that conclusion. The accident in Poland only underscores the risk for Moscow of perpetuating a conflict that Putin’s generals surely know they can’t win.

At this point, absent a negotiated settlement, the best case scenario for Putin is that Zelensky drives him back across the border. The worst case (barring a nuclear escalation) is that an errant Russian missile, fired by or from Russia, lands in NATO territory, killing scores and leaving the US no choice but to intervene directly. At that point, Putin is finished. And not just in Ukraine either.

That brings us full circle. It was obvious Tuesday that, at the least, Russia didn’t deliberately target Poland. All chest-pounding aside, Moscow doesn’t want a fight with NATO. So why keep risking it? The war isn’t winnable. Putin could probably still secure some manner of concessions if he agreed to leave Ukraine now, but with every lost inch of territory, Ukraine’s willingness to negotiate will fade in direct proportion to their odds of winning the ground war. Eventually, Putin could be relegated to lobbing missiles into a country he doesn’t occupy for no strategic gain whatsoever. Surely he’s got more sense left than that. If he doesn’t, I guess we’re all in trouble.