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RIGA, Latvia — Ukrainian forces raising their flag in the city center of Kherson on Friday cemented Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most consequential political and military defeat in his ill-fated 8½-month war.
Kherson was the only regional capital in Ukraine that Russian forces had managed to capture since the start of the invasion on February 24, and ceding the city to Kyiv shattered the illusion of control that Putin sought to create with referendums and declaring Kherson and three others illegal. regions — Luhansk, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia — to be annexed and absorbed into Russia.
While Russian forces still control the wider Kherson region, part of Putin’s coveted “land bridge” from mainland Russia to the illegal annexation of Crimea, the loss of the capital is a blow surprising after repeated and stormy statements by pro-Kremlin figures that Russia would stay. in Kherson “forever”.
Moscow’s hard-line pro-war faction, including nationalist military bloggers, called the city’s surrender a “betrayal” and a “black day”. Kherson, along with the other illegally annexed regions, was written into the Russian constitution as part of Russia, after the parliament affirmed Putin’s annexation plans.
Kherson’s flag, along with that of the other three regions, was recently raised during a ceremony at the State Duma.
While other leaders could suffer serious repercussions, the Kremlin for weeks carefully prepared the Russian population for the shock, distancing Putin from responsibility and trying to insulate him from the political fallout. Still, there were signs that Putin would not completely escape responsibility and that the Kherson defeat could bolster opposition to the war, which has slowly grown amid repeated setbacks on the battlefield.
“I think this will seriously complicate how the situation is seen inside the country,” said one influential Moscow businessman, who declined to be named because of the possible fallout in a paranoid and increasingly totalitarian state. “It’s a serious loss.”
“For Russia, these losses have a sacred character,” the businessman added. “It’s a big blow to Putin’s image.”
The retreat from the city of Kherson was the latest in a series of military setbacks for Putin, including Russia’s failed attempt to seize Ukraine’s capital Kyiv earlier in the war , and Ukraine’s blitzkrieg defeat of Russian forces in the northeastern Kharkiv region in September.
The territorial losses in Kharkiv prompted Putin to declare a disorderly recruitment campaign that drove hundreds of thousands of men to flee Russia and sent tens of thousands of poorly trained soldiers to fight in Ukraine.
Many ordinary Russians still see Putin as an intelligent, tsar-like figure who loves his homeland but is constantly let down by venal and incompetent officials, according to analysts, who said the Kremlin’s propaganda efforts appeared to have worked to minimize public concerns about Kherson. to give up.
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But the numerous military failures in an unnecessary war are obvious to Moscow’s billionaires and elite state officials. Equally clear are the political difficulties created by Putin’s annexations, a flagrant violation of international law now exposed as an illusion.
Amid military withdrawals, disorderly mobilization, deepening economic difficulties and mounting casualties, Moscow is increasingly signaling a readiness for talks with Ukraine. But negotiations are unlikely as Putin sticks to his position that Kyiv must accept his illegal land seizures.
Putin stood aloof on Wednesday as Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the top Russian military commander in Ukraine, Colonel General Sergei Surovikin, held an awkward and robotic dialogue on state-run Russia 24 television, formalizing the decision to leave Kherson “to save lives”.
When Shoigu approved the surrender, Putin visited the federal center for brain and neurological technologies to mark the 75th anniversary of the Federal Medical-Biological Agency. It was not clear whether the Russian president was completely out of touch or intentionally put himself outside the scope of the military decision.
Former Kremlin adviser Sergei Markov, speaking in an interview, described the surrender of Kherson as “Russia’s biggest geopolitical defeat since the collapse of the USSR,” and pointed to Putin’s personal assurance that the territory would always would be part of Russia.
“This is, of course, a big blow to the mood of the population,” Markov said. “It’s a big blow to the army, to its fighting spirit. It’s a blow to respect for President Putin and a blow to optimism.”
Putin, however, remains protected by his group of security and military leaders and has shown no outward signs of a change of course.
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Political analyst Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace recently compared Putin’s increasingly closed and paranoid behavior to Stalin in his later years, in which “all decisions are made by one person.”
But despite outrage among hardliners over the Kherson surrender, Kolesnikov said ordinary Russians seemed convinced, at least for now, by the military’s explanation that the surrender was necessary to save lives.
Putin’s approval rating was “pretty solid”, he said, declining to 77% from 83% during the disorganized September rally, before returning to 79% last month.
A Russian state official said the decision to hand over Kherson “means that there is still rational thinking in command. If the president is part of that, there is hope, albeit the ghost of a chance, that be ready for talks.”
But the state official added that he did not think Putin would not accept Ukraine’s conditions for a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine or even a retreat to pre-war lines, because that would be a “massive political coup” that might not survive.
Many members of the elite are privately critical of Putin’s catastrophic war and resulting sanctions, underscoring the divide between Russia’s hardline pro-war faction and business executives and bureaucrats desperate for an exit and an end to global ostracism.
The businessman said that Moscow was counting on the collapse of Ukrainian resistance in the winter due to missile attacks on civilian energy facilities in Ukraine, although there is no evidence that this will happen.
Another prominent Russian businessman said he believed the Biden administration was pressuring Ukraine to begin negotiations, citing comments late Wednesday by Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that Winter presents “a window of opportunity” for the parties to start talks. Western officials, however, have said it is Kyiv’s decision.
Russians were tired of war, the second businessman said, and Putin’s position was “on the brink of catastrophe.”
“From a military point of view, there are a lot of dead bodies. I think he’s ready for some kind of deal,” the second businessman said, adding that Putin probably realized that a decisive military victory was impossible.
The risks are mounting for Putin, he said. “If he loses more territory, it would be a total shame for him. It would be the end for him personally. It would also be the end for him politically.”
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Analyst Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of political analysis group R. Politik, said the sense of betrayal among Russia’s “war party” poses no threat to Putin, who remains convinced Ukraine will lose support western next year, forcing Kyiv to capitulate to its terms.
Stanovaya said Putin only wanted to buy time until Western support for Ukraine faded, while Kolesnikov dismissed Putin’s signals that he was willing to negotiate as “pure PR,” with the sides too far apart.
Stanovaya said that Putin did not expect Russia to win the war by military means, but rather saw Ukraine as a non-state that would eventually collapse.
The liberation of the city of Kherson fueled speculation about how much further the Ukrainian army could advance before winter. Kyiv’s forces have also made some gains in the east.
Markov, the former Kremlin adviser, said Putin would try to hold on to the remaining annexed territories, once the Russian military is reinforced with trained forces in the coming months. But it was not clear that Russia could arm them with the necessary weapons, he said.
“If he finds out that the Russian economy can’t give these troops military technology, then he will be forced to enter into peace negotiations,” Markov said, adding that even Putin could be forced to accept a withdrawal to the positions that Russia had before February. 24 invasion. This includes the regional capitals of Luhansk and Donetsk, which Russian-backed separatists have controlled since 2014.
“Withdrawal to the February 24 line would be seen as a serious loss but not a capitulation,” he said. “It would be a very tough condition. But it is possible.”
Dixon reported from Riga, Latvia, and Belton reported from London.