When General Sergey Surovikin was appointed commander-in-chief of the Russian forces in Ukraine a month ago, Kremlin cheerleaders in the media hailed him as exactly the kind of fierce warrior necessary to bring order to the wavering invasion.
“General Armageddon”, some called him.
The general on Wednesday appeared on national television in a slightly different role:
was the designated bearer of bad newsannouncing that Russia should leave the capital of the southern region of Kherson to preserve the lives of its soldiers.
President Vladimir Putinwho in a warlike turnout in Moscow’s Red Square a few weeks earlier had declared Kherson part of Russia for eternity, was elsewhere, celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Federal Biological Medical Agency.
The distance was deliberate.
However, with each new setback pronounced in Ukraine, Putin finds it increasingly difficult to break away from smell of failurewhich is progressively eroding its image as a determined and indomitable leader.
“This is a personal regime and, in general, the public understands very well that Putin is behind all the important decisions,” said Abbas Gallyamov, Putin’s former speech writer turned political consultant.
“He is the central pillar in building the system, and if he’s shaking, the whole system is shaking.”
There definitely isn’t a immediate challenge to Putin’s considerable power, and the combination of a powerful propaganda machine and draconian laws to silence dissent is unlikely to ensure a wave of public protest.
Yet after presenting Kherson as a major prize won early in the war, one that would provide a stepping stone to reclaim the entire Black Sea coast, each new step backwards raises questions as to why Russians should trust the Kremlin.
“He will end Putin’s narrative as the great leader,” said Cliff Kupchan, president of Eurasia Group, a political risk assessment firm in Washington.
“It will be another problem for him as he tries to rally Russian public opinion behind his war effort. You don’t lose your biggest prize without taking anything for it. “
To end what has become an ill-conceived war, Putin needs some sort of victory, analysts said.
Fighting risks further failure, but stopping his invasion with little to prove would undermine his primary justification for his more than 20 years in charge:
rebuild Russia as a great power.
Putin doesn’t need a real win, Gallymov said, just something he can sell since it leaves Russia better than before.
“It can’t stop and it can’t go on,” he said, “so it’s in a without exit”.
The Kremlin’s propaganda machine went into action to try to mitigate any criticism of the withdrawal from Russian-controlled territory west of the Dnieper River, including Kherson.
On state television, Vladimir Solovyov, a prominent talk show host, called it a “difficult” decision, warning: “Trust the generals.”
Putin has long relegated the generals to the back seat, worried that one might steal his spotlight.
But Surovikin was given a high public profile, especially with the play involved in recommending withdrawal during a military briefing to the Defense Minister, Sergei K Shoigu, who then gave the order.
The president would like someone else to face defeat.
The state media, and basically all of them have been state media since the start of the war, have euphemized and called the withdrawal the “Kherson maneuver” or “grouping“, insisting that it was only a temporary setback.
The Kremlin also appeared to have acted ahead of time to dispel any criticism from two of the harshest critics of military performance:
Ramzan Kadyrov, the warlike leader of the Chechen Republic, e Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the military contractor Wagner.
Kadyrov said Surovikin was acting like a “true combat general”, while Prigozhin, an ally of the general for years who worked together to wipe out the opposition in Syria, also praised the decision.
Russian experts have told each new defeat that the country is struggling against the whole Westwhose united front will soon break.
This time, pro-Kremlin commentators also pointed out that for centuries Russian forces have emerged victorious from wars that initially seemed disastrous defeats, including the Second World War.
But cracks have emerged among right-wing supporters of the war, including military bloggers who have described the withdrawal in catastrophic terms.
Konstantin Malofeev, a tycoon with his religion-oriented TV network, said that Russia has become a nation of greedy business interests and needs to awaken its fighting spirit.
“We are warriors. We are the Empire,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.
Divisions between the prom
The pro-war rumors could give Putin a breather, analysts said.
There have also been rumors of derision, although most of the criticism has been suppressed by the threat of harsh prison terms.
Where does the territory of Russia end? A man ironically asked on Twitter, using a dirty word to write:
“Where he was not defeated”.
From a military standpoint, the withdrawal really made sense, analysts said, assuming it hadn’t turned into a sham.
The approximately 15,000-20,000 Russian soldiers defending Kherson and the surrounding area were some of the best and most experienced troops Russia still has after losing so many such units in the fighting earlier this year around Kiev and Kharkiv, said Edward Arnold., A former British military officer, army infantry officer and European Security Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
Although the withdrawal of troops across the Dnieper is a risky operation under fire, he said, a successful withdrawal means that “can keep part of his fighting power, which is really necessary ”.
Russian troops are heavily entrenched on the east bank of the river and from there the front line extends northeast for hundreds of miles.
Behind that line lies the Donbas, the industrialized region of southeastern Ukraine for which the two sides have fought for eight years, as well as the land bridge connecting Russia to Crimea, as well as the canal that supplies water to the illegally annexed peninsula.
Preserving all that land is far more important to Putin and his war goals in the city of Kherson itself, analysts said.
Some have suggested that the move was taken literally; that the east bank of the Dnieper River would be much easier to defend.
If the fighting becomes less intense during the winter, Russia could take advantage of the lull consolidate their control on that territory and give the new soldiers more training than the thousands of green recruits who now rush to the front to plug holes.
Moscow may even propose a ceasefire and negotiations, although Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has flatly rejected anything of the sort as long as Russia still holds large swaths of Ukrainian territory.
US officials reportedly tried to push Kiev in that direction, publicly denying it; General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that a winter break would be an opportunity for peace talks.
The problem now for Putin is that he sold Kherson as a major prize in the transition to Russian rule, suggesting that he was recreating Novorossiya, or New Russia, the lower half of Ukraine first conquered by Empress Catherine the Great.
“So far this has been Putin’s jewel in the crown of war,” Kupchan said.
“I must say that his crown is famously poor in jewelry“.
c.2022 The New York Times Company
Source: Clarin
