Where’s Putin? Leader leaves bad news on Ukraine to others
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — When Russia’s high navy brass introduced in a televised look that they had been pulling troops out of the important thing metropolis of Kherson in southern Ukraine, one man lacking from the room was President Vladimir Putin.
As Protection Minister Sergei Shoigu and Gen. Sergei Surovikin, Russia’s chief commander in Ukraine, stiffly recited the explanations for the retreat in entrance of the cameras on Nov. 9, Putin was touring a neurological hospital in Moscow, watching a health care provider carry out mind surgical procedure.
Later that day, Putin spoke at one other occasion however made no point out of the pullout from Kherson -– arguably Russia’s most humiliating withdrawal in Ukraine. Within the days that adopted, he hasn’t publicly commented on the subject.
Putin’s silence comes as Russia faces mounting setbacks in almost 9 months of combating. The Russian chief seems to have delegated the supply of dangerous information to others — a tactic he used throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
Kherson was the one regional capital Moscow’s forces had seized in Ukraine, falling into Russian palms within the first days of the invasion. Russia occupied the town and a lot of the outlying area, a key gateway to the Crimean Peninsula, for months.
Moscow illegally annexed the Kherson area, together with three different Ukrainian provinces, earlier this yr. Putin personally hosted a pomp-filled Kremlin ceremony formalizing the strikes in September, proclaiming that “individuals who dwell in Luhansk and Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia develop into our residents without end.”
Simply over a month later, nonetheless, Russia’s tricolor flags got here down over authorities buildings in Kherson, changed with the yellow-and-blue banners of Ukraine.
The Russian navy reported finishing the withdrawal from Kherson and surrounding areas to the jap financial institution of the Dnieper River on Nov. 11. Since then, Putin has not talked about the retreat in any of his public appearances.
Putin “continues to dwell within the outdated logic: This isn’t a struggle, it’s a particular operation, most important selections are being made by a small circle of ‘professionals,’ whereas the president is preserving his distance,” political analyst Tatyana Stanovaya wrote in a latest commentary.
Putin, who was as soon as rumored to personally supervise the navy marketing campaign in Ukraine and provides battlefield orders to generals, appeared this week to be centered on every little thing however the struggle.
He mentioned chapter procedures and automotive business issues with authorities officers, talked to a Siberian governor about boosting investments in his area, had cellphone calls with varied world leaders and met with the brand new president of Russia’s Academy of Science.
On Tuesday, Putin chaired a video assembly on World Struggle II memorials. That was the day when he was anticipated to talk on the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia — however he not solely determined to not attend, he did not even be a part of it by video convention or ship a pre-recorded speech.
The World Struggle II memorial assembly was the one one in latest days through which some Ukrainian cities -– however not Kherson -– had been talked about. After the assembly, Putin signed decrees awarding the occupied cities of Melitopol and Mariupol the title of Metropolis of Navy Glory, whereas Luhansk was honored as Metropolis of Labor Advantage.
Unbiased political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin attributed Putin’s silence to the very fact he has constructed a political system akin to that of the Soviet Union, through which a pacesetter – or “vozhd” in Russian, a time period used to explain Josef Stalin – by definition is incapable of creating errors.
“Putin and Putin’s system … is inbuilt a manner that every one defeats are blamed on another person: enemies, traitors, a stab within the again, international Russophobia -– something, actually,” Oreshkin stated. “So if he misplaced someplace, first, it’s unfaithful, and second -– it wasn’t him.”
A few of Putin’s supporters questioned such apparent distancing from what even pro-Kremlin circles seen as a crucial developments within the struggle.
For Putin to have cellphone calls with the leaders of Armenia and the Central African Republic on the time of the retreat from Kherson was extra troubling than “the very tragedy of Kherson,” stated pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov in a publish on Fb.
“At first, I didn’t even imagine the information, that’s how unbelievable it was,” Markov stated, describing Putin’s conduct as a “demonstration of a complete withdrawal.”
Others sought to place a constructive spin on the retreat and weave Putin into it. Professional-Kremlin TV host Dmitry Kiselev, on his flagship information present Sunday night time, stated the logic behind the withdrawal from Kherson was “to avoid wasting folks.”
In accordance with Kiselev, who spoke in entrance of a giant photograph of Putin trying preoccupied with a caption saying, “To Save Individuals,” it was the identical logic the president makes use of – “to avoid wasting folks, and in particular circumstances, each particular person.”
That is how some peculiar Russians can view the retreat, too, analysts say.
“Given the rising quantity of people that need peace talks, even amongst Putin’s supporters, any such maneuver is taken calmly and even as an indication of a potential sobering up –- saving manpower, the potential for peace,” stated Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow on the Carnegie Endowment.
For Russia’s hawks -– vocal Kremlin supporters who’ve been calling for drastic battlefield steps and weren’t thrilled concerning the Kherson retreat -– there are common barrages of missile strikes on Ukraine’s energy grid, analyst Oreshkin stated.
Moscow launched one Tuesday. With about 100 missiles and drones fired at targets throughout Ukraine, it was the most important assault so far on the nation’s energy grid and plunged hundreds of thousands into darkness.
Oreshkin believes that such assaults don’t inflict an excessive amount of injury onto Ukraine’s navy and don’t change a lot on the battlefield.
“However it’s essential to create a picture of a victorious ‘vozhd.’ So it’s mandatory to hold out some form of strikes and scream about them loudly. That’s what they’re doing proper now, in my view,” he stated.
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Comply with AP protection of the struggle in Ukraine at: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
