Vladimir Putin had barely finished his speech last Friday welcoming four new regions into Mother Russia, when his mouthpiece, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov admitted that they didn’t actually know where the borders of these regions were. “We will clarify everything today,” he said, when quizzed as to whether Russia was laying claim to those parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions still under Ukrainian control.
But Putin and his advisers are no clearer now as to how much of their neighbour’s land they have claimed than they were a week ago. The stunning success of Ukraine’s counteroffensives in the south and east have pushed Russian troops out of thousands of square kilometres of territory, in the process taking large numbers of prisoners and capturing huge amounts of Russian military equipment.
Precious Chatterje-Doody, who researches politics and international affairs at the Open University, believes the sham referendums and annexations were as much for domestic consumption as anything else. Support for the war in Russia, despite what polling might suggest, appears to be waning – particularly since the Kremlin announced its partial mobilisation last month. You’ve only got to look at the numbers of military-age Russians flooding across the borders of neighbouring countries to see that the urge to risk life and limb for the motherland is not exactly irresistible for many.
