President Vladimir Putin has been left fearing for his life following his eviscerating defeat in Kherson which saw Ukrainian troops wrestle back control of the key city from Russian occupation, a Kyiv official claims.
Kherson, a Black Sea port city located in the Ukrainian region of the same name, was surrendered to Kyiv last week. It dealt a major blow to the Russian offensive and to support from Moscow, including state broadcasters, having been the first and only regional capital captured by Mr Putin’s forces.
“[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, told The Times.
“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.”
It follows the news that a newborn baby has been killed in a Russian missile strike on a maternity hospital in Zaporizhzhia, regional governor Oleksandr Starukh said today.
