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.
