Putin’s army retreats as annexation formalized

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov vowed that Russian forces would recover the territories they had lost to the Ukrainian advance and that the territory would be with Russia “forever” – as Putin promised last week. “They will return,” Peskov told reporters.

Putin himself promised to “stabilize” the situation in the newly annexed territories. “We proceed from the fact that the situation will stabilize, and we will be able to calmly develop these lands,” the Russian president said during a video conference with Russian teachers on Wednesday.

Earlier this week, Kyiv’s forces broke through, threatening a deeper push that could see them close to the administrative center of Kherson, which has been occupied since the early days of the war and is a strategically important port city with access to the Black Sea.

While the Russian Defense Ministry has not officially commented, it appears that the deputy head of the Russian-appointed regional administration has admitted that its forces have lost territory in the south.

The Russian army in the Kherson region was “regrouping” to gather strength and strike back, and Kirill Strimosov was quoted According to what was reported by the state news agency “RIA” on Wednesday. He said there was “no movement” in Ukraine’s advance as of Wednesday, and entry of Ukrainian troops into Kherson was “impossible”.

NBC News was unable to verify either side’s claims, but Western analysts said the evidence indicated that the Ukrainian military had the upper hand in the region.

British military intelligence He said On Wednesday, Ukraine continued to make progress in offensive operations along the northeastern and southern fronts, while the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based military think tank, said in rated tuesday That the Ukrainian forces continued to make “significant gains” in the north of the Kherson region, “and began to collapse the few Russian lines in that region.”

The Ukrainian army forced the Russian forces to retreat to their second line of defense, but there was no breakdown like the one seen during lightning in Ukraine. Counterattack in the Northeast Last month, said Jack Watling, a military analyst at the Royal United Services Institute, a UK think tank.

“But the significance of these developments is that they are progress, and they continue to create problems in very different geographies for the Russian leadership,” Watling said, adding that they were draining some of Moscow’s “more capable forces.”

“I think they will try to keep the second line of defense, make it as strong as possible and play for time.”

This game of time may be an attempt to test the resolve of Ukraine’s Western allies and allow the newly mobilized Russian forces to join the fight and strengthen its faltering army.

Zelensky spoke with President Joe Biden on Tuesday, who emphasized that the United States would never recognize Russia’s annexation. This came as the Biden administration announced a new $625 million security aid package for Ukraine that includes additional weapons and equipment.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday that more than 200,000 people had already been drafted into the Russian armed forces after a recall that led to displacement Of men of military age from the country, analysts are also left skeptical of its ability to radically change Russia’s fortunes on the battlefield.

If Russia can quickly deploy additional, well-trained, well-equipped, properly equipped and effectively integrated forces into existing force structures, said Christopher Toke, an expert on conflict and security at King’s College London, it will have an impact.

“Ukrainian gains in northeastern Kherson, for example, were made against weak and exhausted Russian forces,” Tack said. Obviously, high-quality reinforcements will improve Russia’s defensive capabilities, but none of these conditions apply.

The troops being mobilized would still take weeks to arrive in numbers, and seemed likely to be poorly trained, poorly equipped, supplied, and fed into an already frustrated military organization in many cases, according to Tack.

“Modern ground warfare is deadly for poorly trained forces,” he added. “Any newly mobilized forces would likely evaporate like water under the pressure of combat.”