After being occupied since the beginning of March, Ukraine recently managed to recapture the iconic city of Kherson.
Now the question is how many more defeats can Russian President Vladimir Putin endure before losing his leadership position, says research leader Gudrun Persson at the Total Defense Research Institute (FOI) in Sweden.
– War or no war
– Escaped
Ukraine has previously made clear it will not cede land to Russia and wants back the Crimean peninsula, which it occupied in 2014.
– The annexation of Crimea was very popular in Russia, even in circles critical of Putin. It was accepted in Russian society, but also in the West. Putin got away with it. That he would have survived the loss of Crimea politically is very hard for me to see, adds Persson Today’s news.
However, the research leader sees only one way to end the war – a change in the Russian leadership and Putin’s resignation.
– When the leader of the Kremlin changes his surname, there is always a change in one direction or another. But we don’t know who will replace him. If Putin is a Lenin, he can become a Stalin. If Putin is a Stalin, then perhaps there will be a Khrushchev.
Low probability
US Defense Chief Mark Milley believes, however, that there is not a high chance that Ukraine will be able to completely oust Russia from the occupied territory, including the Crimean peninsula.
The likelihood of a Ukrainian military victory, in which the Russians are expelled from all of Ukraine, to include Crimea, the likelihood of that happening in the near future, is not militarily high, Milley said Wednesday.
READY SPEECH: US Defense Chief Mark Milley during a news conference Wednesday, photo: AP/NTB
sea View
Russia failed to implement some of the goals they had set before war broke out in Februaryhe means. According to Milley, the goals were as follows:
- They wanted to overthrow President Zelensky and his government.
- They wanted to secure access to the Black Sea.
- They wanted to hijack Odessa.
- They wanted to conquer as far as the Dnipro River, pause and then continue attacking as far as the Carpathian Mountains.
Instead, Russia is fighting, and Milley is ruthless in his description of the Russian military.
– The Russian army is in terrible pain. Leaders work hard. They have lost many soldiers. “They’ve lost a huge amount of tanks and combat vehicles and they’ve lost a lot of fourth- and fifth-generation fighter jets and helicopters,” Milley said.
