Today, euphoria from the liberation of Kherson. Tomorrow we will be horrified by the scale of war crimes that will be revealed in the liberated territories. The day after tomorrow will begin the everyday life of a new phase of the war. And in Slavyansk they gave gas, launched trolleybuses. Finally, I can hear the sound of trains that hardly ever run when the enemy was ten kilometers from us. The stores are already so crowded that the usual queues at the cashiers appeared. Groceries are still expensive, but flour and potatoes appeared at pre-war prices. From time to time I met calls for negotiations and peace with Putin from seemingly decent people. I have a question for them: did they really want us to winter here without heat and water under constant shelling? Or that people continue to be captured and tortured in the occupied territories?
In the Battle of Kherson, the Russian army proved to be a strong adversary, and the evacuation to the left bank was carried out quite professionally. However, the Ukrainian army demonstrated not just professionalism, but the highest level of strategy and tactics: first, they managed to lure the best parts of the invaders to the left bank and, thanks to this, inflict an unexpected defeat in a completely different place - in Slobozhanshchina, and then make the enemy flee from Kherson! It’s unbelievable, especially since the enemy always had the advantage. It was impossible to achieve a better result with the forces at Ukraine’s disposal.
However, I still hoped that Putin would not let the army escape and would expose it to complete defeat. I thought so on the grounds that he is guided not by military, but by political logic within his distorted picture of the world. After all, this explains why he previously transferred fresh forces to the Kherson bridgehead, and when things didn't go well, declared the Kherson region part of Russia, began mobilization and threatened with nuclear weapons. Never was the world as close to nuclear war as it was this fall. In any case, he firmly demonstrated he had no intention of surrendering Kherson under any circumstances. It is all the more difficult to assume that he timed his decision to surrender Kherson to the G20 summit. Most likely, there was a threat that the army would begin to retreat without permission.
Now, after the liberation of Kherson, we can evaluate the results of the battle. Since it was impossible to provide a full-fledged supply of troops on the bridgehead, it was futile to hold it.
Military logic demanded withdrawal, taking up defense along the Dnieper, and transferring the released troops to another, more promising area where they could be properly supplied. Therefore, the withdrawal from near Kherson should have strengthened the Russian troops. This would have been the case if they had been withdrawn immediately. But now the retreating troops are frayed and demoralized, and, in addition, lost a lot of equipment. It will take a month to replenish them with the mobilized and bring them to combat readiness. At the same time, the AFU's brigades are freed up, replenished with trophy weapons, retained their strength, and encouraged by the victory. And they can be put into combat at any part of the front right now. In addition, it is now possible to put all exits from Crimea under fire control, and in the future, to force its demilitarization even without forcing the Dnieper, as happened with Serpent Island.
Leaving Kherson for Putin is politically disastrous. Even if the mobilization, on which such hopes were pinned, could not stop the advance of the AFU, it means that the war is pointless and all the casualties are in vain. Besides, if the army has imposed on Putin the decision to retreat, then he can no longer rely on it. In fact, he does not rely on it, so he created an alternative tonton-macoute army led by Prigozhin and Kadyrov. They are fiercely hated by the entire Putin elite, the military and special services, which further undermines the power.
In order to keep control of the situation under these conditions, Putin needs success on the front by all means. But where? There is already a continuous offensive on Bakhmut, but there the AFU are successfully grinding hordes of criminals from the Wagner PMC. There is another option: to create new units from the mobilized, to put there as commanders the veterans who managed to be taken out from near Kherson, and then throw them on the Ugledar. If successful, it would be possible to go into the rear of the Ukrainian group near Donetsk and then reach Bakhmut. But it takes time to prepare for such an offensive, and the AFU will not wait. If they take the offensive themselves near Ugledar, they will cut the only railroad line along the Azov region. Then all the positions of the invaders in the south of Ukraine will crumble. That is why Putin took an unprecedented step of publicly humiliating himself, calling Ukrainians "partners," and begging for a temporary truce.
I can't say how the military action will develop further. On the one hand, Putin always has some reserves, but on the other hand, the AFU always acts unexpectedly. In the long run, the defeat of Russia is inevitable, and then the threat of losing power hangs over Putin. Probably, at the last moment, he will issue an order to use nuclear weapons, which the military will refuse to execute, leading to a coup. It is possible that he will not have time to give such an order, because he is already destroying his own vertical of power. In particular, he has already abolished the state's monopoly on violence by creating a private army of criminals. Moreover, he delegated the pardon power, which is the exclusive privilege of the president, to these same criminals.
All Putin's elite are deathly afraid of the tonton macoutes, so sooner or later they will unite with the army and the FSB to destroy them. Prigozhin and Kadyrov understand this very well, so the seizure of power is the only way for them to physically survive. This is what they are preparing for right now. With the most thuggish, such as Zolotov and Surovikin, they are trying to make an alliance, they are trying to replace those like Lapin with more convenient ones.
If, as a result of further defeats on the fronts, Putin loses control over the situation, the war with Ukraine has every chance of escalating into a civil war within Russia. The combat-ready army units will have been destroyed by that time, the mobilized guys will rebel everywhere, and Prigozhin will have a huge reserve at his disposal - colonies of prisoners. Of course, the majority of criminals are not ready to go to die in Ukraine, but they will agree much more willingly to rob and kill their own compatriots on the territory of Russia with impunity. This means that the nightmare of Bucha and Mariupol can be repeated in any Russian city.
Suppose the military and the FSB manage to eliminate Prigozhin. What then to do with this huge army of criminals? Disband? Then they will be free to use their military experience to create gangs. Send them back to the camps? But they will resist to the end, and we are talking about many tens of thousands of people. This means that the war will be a war of annihilation, as no reconciliation is possible.
The world community will not tolerate the chaos of a civil war on the territory of a nuclear state. Naturally, no one will attack Russia, but to protect the local population, an international coalition may well be created to introduce peacekeepers.
Along the way, the problem of nuclear weapons on Russian territory will be solved. All those who now support Putin and shout that NATO attacked Russia in Ukraine will be the first to beg the West to bring in peacekeepers to stabilize the situation in Russia. However, the peacekeepers cannot stay in Russia indefinitely, they will have to hand over power to someone. If power is transferred to any body involving a single decision-making center, be it the president or the parliament, the imperialists will sooner or later take revenge, and the war will repeat itself. To prevent this, power will have to be transferred to such a federal body, which only harmonizes decisions made in the regions and not in one center. In this case, the regions themselves will not allow the revival of the empire, at least for selfish reasons, because it is unprofitable for them.
It’s just one of the possible scenarios. I only described it so that people can understand what choices they can make in a crisis. In fact, the future is unpredictable.
