Just how strong is Putin's position?
Putin: Strong man!
How much loyalty does Putin actually command among the Russian elite? The real elite, not the businessmen, rather the armed forces and intelligence services.
It is noticeable in the invasion of the Ukraine that all the heavy lifting has been done by the conscript land army. The air war has been an "army" air war: army helicopters, cruise missiles, truck-based rocket launchers. The captured soldiers are mainly 19-year-olds who want to call their mothers.
It is of course a
standard Russian tactic to send in the cannon fodder first. This serves
to mop up the enemy's ammunition, and reveals their positions. But certain dogs have not barked.
Notably, the navy has not attacked. It could have been shelling the coastal cities all this while: Mariupol, Odessa, and frankly there is nothing those cities could have done to resist an attack from the sea. The Ukraine has next to no navy. But no, the Russian army has been forced to fight the Ukrainians on land with no help from the sea. The Russian naval infantry (what we would call Marines) has not stormed ashore and joined the scrap.
It seems the admirals are not taking Putin's orders.
Putin, frustrated by the slow progress in the land war, has fired eight top generals (and two have died in combat - amusingly one was hit by a sniper while he was reprimanding an armoured column for their ineptitude.)
But no admirals have been fired for the navy's inaction.
The Russian navy consists of the Northern Fleet, headquartered at Murmansk, the Pacific Fleet operating out of Vladivostok, the Black Sea Fleet based at Sevastopol an Air Division and, irrelevant for the invasion of the Ukraine, the Caspian Flotilla.
Together they can put to sea (approximately) 1 aircraft carrier, 5 cruisers, 10 destroyers, 10 frigates, about 100 smaller warships and more than 50 submarines.
All the surface ships could attack cities on the coast, but none has. There are a lot of Russian naval vessels in the Black Sea now, but their actions have been very passive. They have steamed around in impressive convoys; they have blockaded ports. But they have done very little by way of offensive action; no shelling of cities; no sea-launched cruise missiles; no marines wading ashore.
The admirals it seems, are not willing to spend their assets. They prefer to keep them, in the sure knowledge that what they lose won't be replaced by a bankrupt Russian state. The more depleted the other services become; the stronger the Navy. And that's the way they like it.
Putin is clearly not fully in control of all the armed forces of Russia.
