Ukrainian troops continue to retake the ground from the Russians. The Kyiv army pushes back the front line in the north-east and in the south of Ukraine. A military defeat of the Kremlin that gives hope of a Ukrainian victory in this conflict.
“Vladimir Putin lost the war in Ukraine, but he doesn’t know it yet,” Gen. Michel Yakovleff, former deputy chief of staff at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (NATO), said on BFMTV.
If the trend continues, it remains to be seen whether Vladimir Putin will accept the failure of his “special operation” or, on the contrary, choose escalation.
“He’s trying to regain control”
“I can’t imagine Vladimir Putin accepting defeat,” says Sergei Buntman, a Russian journalist and translator. Indeed, it is hard to imagine the Kremlin strongman conceding defeat fairly. Also, he has never done it since the beginning of the conflict.
“In his speech on Friday, he announces the annexation of the four regions of Donbass as a victory when the initial objective was to conquer all of Ukraine,” says former French President François Hollande, speaking to the microphone of BFMTV, estimating that leading Russia seeks to “cover up a defeat”.
On the contrary, “he remains in a combative state of mind: the reality of the situation on the ground does not escape anyone, not even Vladimir Putin, which is why he seeks to regain control”, analyzes Thierry Arnaud, international politics editorialist for BFMTV.
“This is the whole sequence that we have been witnessing for ten days with the mobilization, the organization of the pseudo-referendum and the great victory announced on Friday in a speech,” he continues.
“We can see that it is not acceptable or bearable for him to go in front of the world and say ‘I am losing to Ukraine’.”
“If you use nuclear energy, you are politically dead”
Rather than accept defeat, the Russian president, who derives his legitimacy from his strength, may choose to escalate. “With Vladimir Putin, we must always take the risks of escalation seriously, we have seen it with the threats that hang over the nuclear power plant” in Zaporizhia, analyzes in this sense François Hollande.
If the option remains unlikely for the time being, the threat of nuclear weapons still looms. A few days ago, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov also urged Moscow to use “low-power nuclear weapons” in Ukraine.
“Vladimir Putin knows that if he uses nuclear energy, he is politically dead. He will be an outcast on a planetary scale, he will be shunned even by the Chinese and their most loyal allies”, explains Ulysse Gosset, editorialist for BFMTV.
Vladimir Putin thus appears to be the prisoner of a precipitous career in which he cannot admit defeat, which probably means the end of his regime.
Source: BFM TV
