Vladimir Putin ‘living in fear for his life’ as Russian army retreats following Kherson defeat
The liberation of Kherson was a serious blow for Putin and could signal the end of his reign, a key military adviser believes.
The liberation of Kherson from Russian occupation was a serious psychological blow for President Putin that has left him fearing for his life, a senior military adviser in President Zelensky’s office has said.
Last week’s surrender of Kherson, the only regional capital that Putin’s army had captured, triggered shock and despair among hardliners in Moscow, including state television presenters.
“[Putin] is very afraid because there is no forgiveness in Russia for tsars who lose wars,” Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, said. “He is fighting for his life now. If he loses the war, at least in the minds of the Russians, it means the end. The end of him as a political figure. And possibly in the physical sense.”
Kherson was Ukraine’s biggest victory on the battlefield and came after a series of humiliating retreats by Russia’s army in the Kharkiv and Donbas regions. “This has forced even people who are very loyal to Putin to doubt that they can win this war,” Arestovich, 47, said.
He said Kherson’s liberation had triggered renewed Russian strikes on the country’s infrastructure and plans for a fresh offensive from Belarus, a Russian ally to the north of Ukraine. Putin’s troops advanced on Kyiv from Belarus during the early stages of the war, but were forced to retreat after stiff resistance.
This time, Russia is likely to deploy troops from Belarus to the Donbas region, Arestovich said. He believes Moscow could use the forces to mount an offensive on the Rivne nuclear power plant in northwestern Ukraine. One of the plant’s four units was automatically disconnected last week after Russian strikes hit the region.
Relentless Russian strikes have halved Ukraine’s power capacity, leaving millions of people without electricity. Arestovich said the attacks were an attempt to “blackmail” Ukraine and its western allies into talks with Moscow that would result in Russia holding onto the occupied regions of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk. Putin would then present this as the main result of his invasion in an attempt to convince the Russian public the war was justified. Ukraine has said it will hold talks with Russia only after all its troops have left.
Arestovich said Russia should be forced to hand over its nuclear arsenal when the war is over. Ukraine gave up its Soviet-era nuclear missiles almost 30 years ago as part of an international agreement signed by Russia that guaranteed its sovereignty and borders. He said: “Russia proved itself to be a people and political system ready to blackmail the world with the death of civilisation for the sake of its political goals.”
As winter approaches, Ukraine has begun evacuating residents of Kherson in an effort to avert a humanitarian catastrophe. Retreating Russian forces destroyed critical infrastructure, leaving the city without electricity, running water or communications. Temperatures in Kherson, which had a pre-war population of about 280,000 people, can fall to as low as minus 20C.
Ukraine has vowed to recapture all of its land seized by Russia, including Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that was annexed by the Kremlin in 2014. Arestovich said Ukraine would eventually seek to use western-supplied missiles to hit the 12-mile bridge that connects Crimea to Russia to isolate Russian troops stationed there.
“We can isolate Crimea, and it will remain an island,” he said.
Any Russian ships attempting to bring provisions to their forces across the Black Sea or the Sea of Azov would make an easy target. “In this case, they will be physically unable to hold onto Crimea. They are terribly afraid of this,” Arestovich said.
He warned, however, against expectations that Ukraine would recapture the peninsula in the near future, pointing to heavily fortified Russian positions in Melitopol, a city known as the “gateway to Crimea”. Arestovich also said that Russia’s concentration of troops in the Donbas region was aimed at preventing Kyiv from mounting a successful offensive on Crimea.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the Kherson region entered a new stage this week as its troops began an assault on the Kinburn Spit, widely seen as a weak point in Russia’s defence of the left side of the Dnipro River. If Ukraine can capture the spit, it would make it easier for its forces to control the entrance to the Dnipro, access to ports in Kherson and nearby Mykolaiv, and repel Russian attacks on the Ukrainian-controlled Black Sea coast.
Putin’s army may have been forced out of Kherson, but its soldiers are only a few hundred away across the Dnipro.
A 61-year-old woman and a 37-year-old man were killed overnight by Russian shelling, a Ukrainian official said yesterday. Seven people were wounded.
The Times
