Western media: After Kherson, Putin’s supporters split
The retreat of the Russian army from a strategically important bridgehead on the right bank of the Dnieper provoked a split among supporters of the Russian President.
Western media are writing about this, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
Thus, The New York Times newspaper quotes the editor-in-chief of the southern regional publication Bloknot, Oleg Pakholkov, who criticizes the decision to leave Kherson, recalling that the defenders of Stalingrad had the opportunity to retreat beyond the Volga, but they did not do so.
“The surrender of Kherson suggests the opposite. Therefore, soon those who took Kherson will come to other places. It looks like we have nothing to stop them,” the newspaper draws attention to Pakholkov’s statement.
A similar topic is raised by the famous American publication The Hill.
Russia's retreat from Kherson last week has led to a rare public rift between Russian President Vladimir Putin's pro-war allies. The withdrawal of Kremlin troops from Kherson came just weeks after Putin decided to annex the strategically important city, and was the third major blow to Russia's military efforts since the invasion began.
Some of the most prominent military hawks have defended what they call a strategic withdrawal, while others have sharply criticized the decision. Russian nationalist Alexander Dugin, dubbed "Putin's brain," accused Putin of failing to fulfill his obligations to protect Russian cities and drew parallels with the story of a king killed for failing his people.
Pro-Kremlin TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov, dubbed the “voice of Putin,” launched an angry tirade against leaving Kherson. And pro-Russian military analyst and blogger Boris Rozhin called the retreat “the murder of Russian hopes,” the newspaper cites a selection of opinions.
It is noted that a number of politicians and opinion leaders (Margarita Simonyan, Boris Slutsky and others) supported the departure from Kherson.
The American Institute for the Study of War also draws attention to the problem of the split, according to which the retreat from Kherson provoked “an ideological split between Putin and the country’s radical hawks.”
“Putin is finding it increasingly difficult to appease part of his highly ideological pro-war electorate due to the inability of his armed forces to achieve his maximalist goals of overthrowing the Ukrainian government and taking over all of Ukraine,” the Institute concluded.
English version :: Read in English Western media: After Kherson, Putin's supporters split