Over the weekend and at the outset of this week, Ukraine liberated the city of Kherson which was Russia’s only major urban area under its control for over eight months.
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When Russia announced that it will retreat its forces from the city,Vladimir Putin was not present nor did he issue any comment about this development thus far.
Military blunders and the retreat from Kherson
Nearly nine months into the Ukraine War, Russia has suffered numerous humiliating defeats and even conceded a few key battles without a fight as its forces routed from their posts.
What was thought and known as a formidable army has been proven to be disorganised, under-supplied, and lacking morale. The results on the ground evenpushed the Kremlin to dial down on its propaganda.
As a result of trying to stir up domestic support, state-owned media began to mix in a dose of real-world facts from the usual spin.
However, the media or critics never dare to criticise Vladimir Putin, but rather focused on generals and commanders that were in the trenches in Ukraine.
According to Reuters, at the beginning of the month of November, Vladimir Putin commented on the situation in Kherson by calling on citizens there to evacuate the city by citing safety concerns. However, he never got involved with the top Russian military officials last week in announcing or commenting about the retreat of Russia’s forces.
In fact, this proves again that Vladimir Putinnever gets involved in brokering bad news to the Russian public. He has yet to comment at all about the military development in Kherson, AP reports.
Putin never delivers bad news
According to the AP, it appears that Vladimir Putindelegates the delivery of bad news to his underlings so that he is not to blame for anything, a strategy which he has employed also during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dmitry Oreshkin, an independent analyst describes Putin’s silence as a system he has built which is like in the Soviet Union where the leader was infallible.
‘Putin and Putin’s system … is built in a way that all defeats are blamed on someone else: enemies, traitors, a stab in the back, global Russophobia -– anything, really. So if he lost somewhere, first, it’s untrue, and second -– it wasn’t him.’
Sources used:
-AssociatedPress: ‘Where’s Putin? Leader leaves bad news on Ukraine to others’
-Reuters: ‘Putin endorses evacuation of parts of Ukraine's Kherson region’
