Touting 70-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin’s retreat from the Kherson region as the biggest Russian defeat since the collapse of the 1991 Soviet Union, former Putin adviser Sergei Markov called the defeat catastrophic for Putin. “The surrender of Kherson is the largest geopolitical defeat of Russia since the collapse of the USSR,” said Markov, a pro-Kremlin analyst and former adviser to Putin. Markov said nothing about the supply line problems Russia faced heading into a cold winter, something that could jeopardize thousands of Russian troops. While Putin took Kherson in March, there’s no strategic reason to maintain control over Kherson, when Putin’s stated mission of the Feb. 24 invasion was to protect Russian speakers in the Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea regions of Ukraine. Kherson was militarily insignificant to the overall mission, yet demonstrating Kremlin power.
Putin’s strategy heading into the winter months is to avoid major confrontations with Ukraine’s counteroffensive which attempt to reclaim sovereign land lost to the Kremlin over the last eight months of war. Western leaders, especially Kiev, want to sell the withdrawal as a major collapse of the Russian military. But the operative cliché involves Putin picking his battles wisely, something Ukraine would like to control Putin knows that Kherson’s importance in the scheme of things pales in comparison to securing Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea. When the war started Feb. 24, Putin’s aim was to de-fang the Ukrainian military, supplied lethal weapons by the U.S. and NATO. When the conflict began, Putin said it was more about holding the line about NATO encroachment on the Russian Federation than anything else. Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed that NATO impinged on Russian national security.
White House and Kiev officials said Putin was trying to conquer Ukraine in the early days of the war, something Putin refuted. Putin offered Zelensky a way out of the war by accepting the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk and recognizing Crimea as a sovereign Russian territory. Zelensky rejected Putin’s terms, saying he expects to reclaim every inch of Ukraine’s sovereign territory. President Joe Biden agreed with Zelensky’s plan, funding a proxy war using Ukrainian troops to battle the Russian Federation. Biden has support of the EU and NATO but China, India and a host of other countries don’t agree with Biden’s proxy war. Putin decided to surrender Kherson may be the strongest signal to date that he’s willing to go to the peace table and find an equitable end to the war. Zelensky said recently he would not negotiate with Russia until Putin’s removed from power.
Zelensky only recently retracted his position on negotiating with Putin but only after 45-year-old National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan traveled to Kiev to change his mind. Whether admitted to or not, the White House has more clout in deciding which direction the war takes. If Biden wants to ever get WNBA start Brittney Griner out of a Russian penal colony, he needs to move the conflict from the battlefield to the peace table. Biden and Zelensky have said they want to reclaim more lost Ukraine territory before going to the peace table with Putin. “The political consequences of this huge defeat will be really big,” Markov said, hinting that the Kremlin may remove Putin from power. Markov has no secret information to suggest that but gives the Western view of Putin’s retreat from Kherson. Markov rejects the idea that the retreat is strategic to protect Russian troops.
Zelensky had no choice but to accept the billions in U.S. aid, now exceeding $70 billion, knowing his Kiev government was bankrupt. Biden agreed to supply Ukraine unlimited cash-and-lethal weapons as long as Ukrainian forces continued to battle the Russian Federation. Leaving Kherson shows that Putin knows how to pick his battles, realizing that the territory does Russia no good, other than occupying a large region of Ukraine. But Putin knows that time nears when the conflict will enter the peace process, requiring both sides to make compromises. Leaving Kherson sends a loud signal to Biden and Zelensky that the time draws near to start ceasefire and peace talks. Putin announced Sept. 30 Russian sovereign control over Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia. Putin decision to surrender Kherson is both strategic and a signal that it’s time for ceasefire and peace talks.
Western officials and Kiev presents Putin’s Kherson withdrawal as a major Kremlin defeat because half the battle for Kiev is to humiliate the Russian military. Putin has the resources to stay in Kherson, if he wanted to continue to fall into Ukraine’s military trap. He’s wanted to get out of Kherson to deny the Ukraine military its counteroffensive in the region. However Zelensky views Putin’s Kherson withdrawal, it shows that the war cannot go on indefinitely. Zelensky wants to continue the fighting as long as the U.S. foots the bill to the Kiev government and the war. Biden must decide whether the time is right to let U.N. peacekeepers do their jobs and bring the Ukraine War to an end. Biden will fall short in his mission to topple Putin from power. But there’s already so much damage to Ukraine’s infrastructure that it will take years to rebuild the country.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
