As it turns out, simply telling everyone that Kherson is part of Russia isn’t going to be enough for Vladimir Putin to truly claim the region as his own.
That’s because Ukraine’s troops, who’ve clearly been the more efficient fighting force in the conflict, are absolutely annihilating Russian military positions with aplomb, as Moscow’s men continue to run scared…dropping their rifles and sprinting at the sight of the Ukrainian army.
Kyiv’s troops were pushing forward in the country’s east and south, threatening a major new breakthrough and forcing Putin’s soldiers to retreat from territory he claimed to have annexed in a grand ceremony last week.
Moscow has matched its annexation claims with a call-up of reservists and new nuclear threats, a broad intervention that has not only threatened to escalate its clash with Ukraine’s Western allies, but also expose domestic vulnerabilities.
But, with the lines not yet drawn, Ukraine’s recent gains could make this difficult.
Russian lawmakers Monday ratified the illegal annexation of four partially occupied Ukrainian regions: Donetsk and Luhansk in the east, and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south. But while the Kremlin said it had not yet determined where the borders for its newly claimed land would be established, the areas under its control were being rapidly pushed back.
Ukraine has suggested repeatedly that they won’t be stopping at repelling the Russian advances of the last eight months, but that they intend to retake Crimea as well – an area that Russia illegally annexed back in 2014.
