Appointing Dvornikov to save the day is a Hail Mary. But this misses the point. Even if Dvornikov’s brutality can somehow pacify Ukraine, it will convince the rest of the world to keep sanctions in place, thereby institutionalizing their crippling economic effects. Economic warfare is being waged by a massive global coalition. Russia was hardly economically robust before the war, but there are some claims that Russia’s gross domestic product is contracting by 50 percent. That may be overstated, but there is no question that things are bad. For Russia to “win” in Ukraine would not solve this problem. If anything, it could compound it.

With Dvornikov managing Ukraine, Russia must go from a single Hail Mary to a second larger one. The only way to both win in Ukraine and get free from the sanctions is to create a basis for negotiations and mutual concessions. To do that, Russia must have some basis on which to get the West to abandon its sanctions regime – that is, by having something to trade. Russia cannot impose equivalent sanctions, nor can it gin up public sympathy for Russia. This leaves it only one option: to threaten Western economies by threatening the trading system.

This requires a military solution. Russia has over 20 Kilo-class submarines, diesel-powered subs that lack the range and endurance of nuclear-powered submarines but are nonetheless able to carry both torpedoes and cruise missiles, which means they launch from a distance.