DECRYPTION – The Ukrainian army has reconquered in one week nearly 6000 km² of territories occupied by the Russians in the east and south, near Kherson, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In five days, the Ukrainian army changed the dynamics of the conflict. It has also proved – to Moscow, to its people, but also to the West – that it is capable of making considerable gains, whereas a few days ago still many foreign observers feared a long conflict, in which the two parties were again mired in the mud more than eight years after the beginning of the Russian invasion, in 2014. This analysis, moreover, had relieved the complexes of the proponents of a position which, at the start of the conflict, had remained marginal: more and more voices in Europe favored the idea of an agreement allowing the fighting to stop in order to preserve the country’s security and regional stability, even if Ukraine would have to give up recovering its territories occupied by Moscow.
Read alsoWar in Ukraine: what if the Kherson counter-offensive was only a diversion to better outflank the Russians in the East?
Today, this discourse is outdated, as the Ukrainian forces have demonstrated their ability to lead a coordinated, large-scale, successful counter-offensive. “It’s unheard of since 2014, when Ukrainians…