The writer is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former Russian diplomat
The order that Russian troops should withdraw from the city of Kherson — the only regional centre they have managed to take since February — is the latest major defeat for Moscow in Ukraine. Just two months ago, the Russian army was forced to flee from all its previously occupied areas of the Kharkiv region.
General Sergei Surovikin, who was appointed commander of Russian troops in Ukraine after the Kharkiv withdrawal, has warned that “difficult decisions” may lie ahead. The loss of Kherson is all the worse because this was one of four occupied Ukrainian regions the Kremlin announced it was annexing at the end of September.
From the start of the invasion, there has been speculation that military failure could lead to the downfall of Vladimir Putin. After all, the Greek and Argentine juntas collapsed after failed military adventures, and unsuccessful colonial wars led to the Carnation Revolution in Portugal and the dismantling of the Salazar-Caetano regime.
Other examples suggest we should be cautious: being defeated in Kuwait in 1991 did not bring down Saddam Hussein, and Slobodan Milosevic’s nationalist regime survived the routing of Serb forces in Croatia and Bosnia. However, even if large-scale failures in Ukraine do not bring down Putin, they may change the face of his regime.
Russia’s objectives in the war against Ukraine are anything but clear. They have included “denazification” and “decommunisation”; ensuring the security of inhabitants of the Donbas; the demilitarisation and non-admission of Ukraine to Nato; the return of formerly Russian lands; the protection of the Russian language; and even the “saving” of Ukrainian cities from gay parades.
The lack of clearly defined objectives makes the definition of victory uncertain. But this ambiguity also makes the criteria for defeat unclear — let alone one so bad as to endanger Putin. In fact, the Russian president had already survived several serious defeats: the invasion’s opening “blitzkrieg” failed, and Russian troops were forced to retreat from around Kyiv and several other cities. Russia lost the Moskva, the flagship of its Black Sea Fleet, and abandoned Snake Island, its first successful capture from the start of the war. After the hasty retreat from the outskirts of Kharkiv, another symbolically important target — the bridge to Crimea — was attacked. Other leaders might have already been toppled by such military failures, but not Putin.
The fact is that Putin’s supporters do not perceive the invasion of Ukraine as an act of aggression. For them, it’s a retaliation against the much more powerful west. Researchers of Russian society are observing a startling paradox. History puts Russia in a row of vast western colonial empires. But after its defeat in the cold war, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic hardships of the 1990s, a growing number of Russians felt they had been reduced to a colony ruled by western forces. They now believe they are casting off the yoke which so humiliated their country and “imposed” capitalism upon it.
In the eyes of dissatisfied Russians, any form of resistance to the west is a victory, almost regardless of the end result. Even in retreat, they will console themselves with the thought of having prevented Russia’s “further enslavement”. This is why there is no direct link between military setbacks and the weakening of Putin’s power. It is as difficult for the president to lose this war as it is to win it. Domestically, even the invasion itself is a sort of victory. Meanwhile, the passive majority can be convinced that any outcome is the best possible one. And the critics will be silenced with repression, just as they are now.
There are signs that after retreating from Kherson, the more pragmatic elements in the Kremlin will look for a compromise. Whether or not the retreat is a military trap for Ukrainian troops, as many fear, it is impossible for Moscow to control the city and support forces cut off from Russian supply lines by the large Dnipro river. The word “negotiations”, once almost a taboo, is now increasingly heard from Russian officials.
Moscow may try to secure a formal recognition of its control over the rest of the occupied territories, and a cessation of Ukrainian offensives, in exchange for the return of Kherson to Ukraine and an end to the bombardment of critical infrastructure before the winter sets in. But there are two problems with this offer. One is the total lack of trust from Kyiv. The other is that it would endanger Putin’s status as the challenger of the west. The risk is that this will push the Russian president into a virtually endless war for its own sake, and even tougher repression at home than he might have first thought necessary.
