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Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine is failing and failing badly. Here’s why
With the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine now back in Ukrainian hands, there is no longer any hiding place for Putin or his general staff when it comes to the disastrous state of Russian’s military campaign after nine months’ duration. It has revealed the Russian military machine to be substandard on land, at sea and in the air, dispelling the illusion of superpower status when it comes to its conventional armed forces.
Whether the ill-fated attempt to mount a lightning strike and circle Kiev at the outset of the conflict, resulting in significant losses of men and materiel; whether the sinking of the Moskva, flagship of the much heralded Russian Black Sea Fleet in April; whether the rout suffered by Russian forces in the northeast around Kharkov in September, losing thousands of square kilometres of territory in a matter of a weeks andleaving behind intact tonnes of equipment in the process; or whether now the grievous (from a Russian perspective) loss of Kherson, the only regional capital to have fallen under Russian control; all of it will haunt the Kremlin for years to come — and justifiably so.
