2023-11-16 20:30:02
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in Rostov-on-Don (Russia), November 10, 2023. SPUTNIK / VIA REUTERS
Moscow holds. This is the analysis that Russian and foreign observers are making, almost unanimously, at the end of 2023. In Russia, the observation even takes on a readily triumphalist tone. “Ukraine now has a choice: capitulate or cease to exist”, warns the speaker of the Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin. “How the West lost the economic war against Russia”, headlines the news site Baltnews. “The world looks at Russia like Noah’s ark”adds MP Elena Panina, while the President of the Federation Council, Valentina Matvienko, proposes nothing less than the creation of a “ministry of happiness”.
The contrast with the sometimes apocalyptic tone that emanated from certain comments during the first part of the year is striking. Certainly, the propaganda never allowed any defeatism to take hold, but Russia was then presented as engaged in a fierce existential conflict, fighting for its survival in the face of forces “satanic” – the word is from Vladimir Putin.
It was precisely the Russian president who took the initiative for change. Since February 24, 2022, the first day of the invasion of Ukraine, he has spoken little – and never about the situation at the front, which was generally disastrous after the progress of the first days. The turnaround began in July: Mr. Putin became inexhaustible, frequently evoking, often in a cheerful manner, the” failure “ of the great Ukrainian counter-offensive of the summer.
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We can guess from this development the relief of the Russian head of state. After its successes in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions, the kyiv army advanced further reinforced. The facts now prove Vladimir Putin right: the Russian army, entrenched behind the “Surovikin line” (minefields, trenches, anti-armor obstacles), held.
Close ranks
Moscow holds. The observation is the same in almost all areas. Certainly, it remains inglorious, considering the objectives displayed by the government when launching its large-scale war against Ukraine: “denazify” and demilitarize the country, judge its leaders, push back NATO, take kyiv and Odessa, end the“hegemony” Western in the world… The only firm success is that which had been excluded from the start by Vladimir Putin: the annexation of new territories.
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But Russia has weathered all the shocks caused by the war, including those that had not been anticipated. Above all, Russian leaders now consider that time is on their side in the confrontation with Ukraine and the West. The country has put itself in battle order, it is entrenched in its favorite posture of the besieged citadel.
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