There is a lot at stake for Vladimir Putin as thewar he has started has not been going his way. Over the past nine months, Russia has lost swaths of Ukrainian land including some that it recently annexed including the city of Kherson, resulting in many embarrassing defeats for the Kremlin.
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Reports now suggest Ukraine is preparing a far-reaching offensive to take back every part of its country including the Crimean region which it lost back in 2014.
Vows to take back the region
In August during the ‘Crimea Platform Conference’, Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed his country’s determination to take back the Crimean Peninsula which he said was illegally annexed from Russia.
In doing so he said Ukraine would resort to any means it deems necessary and it would not consult any other country before doing so, DW reports.
‘It is necessary to liberate Crimea. This will be the resuscitation of world law and order.’
According to LRT, in September, retired US General Ben Hodges predicted that the Ukrainian military would push for the liberation of Crimea by mid-January, and likely succeed in taking back all other Russian-occupied territories by the summer of 2023.
It all started and ends in Crimea
As per a report by Politico, the Ukrainian preparations for reclaiming Crimea are not so secretive anymore, and an offensive might commence as soon as this December.
Albeit Western officials openly regard Crimea as Ukrainian, behind closed doors they fear retaking it is a completely difficult ordeal than merely firing missiles into Russian-held positions there which Ukraine has done recently.
The likelihood of losing Crimea and the Donbas regions would result in additional embarrassment for Vladimir Putin. Thus, stoking Western fears about him precariously escalating the conflict past a nuclear threshold, resulting in a bloody campaign, the Economist reports.
Amid reports that Russians have begun fleeing from Crimea, Refat Chubarov, a local Crimean Tatar leader there believes losing the peninsula would trigger the dismantling of the Kremlin, and it would cost Vladimir Putin the most,Newsweek reports.
'This Ukrainian territory is extremely important for Putin. This is the question of his life, and not only political. Therefore, but it is also clear that Russia, especially at the stage of inevitable defeat, will stimulate all its agents and all its forces in order to keep Crimea for itself.’
In a televised address in August, Zelenskyy said Russia’s illegal campaign started in Crimea and the Donbas regions so it must end there, Newsweek reports.
‘This war, which began with Russia's occupation of our Crimea, with an attempt to seize Donbas, must end precisely there—in the liberated Crimea, in the liberated cities of Donbas, with our troops reaching the state border of Ukraine’.
Sources used:
-DW: ‘Zelenskyy vows that Ukraine will retake Crimea’
-LRT: ‘‘Liberation of Crimea will be complete by the summer’ – interview with US General Hodges’
-Politico: ‘Ukraine’s not-so-secret prep to retake Crimea’
-Economist: ‘A Ukrainian attempt to retake Crimea would be bloody and difficult’
-Newsweek: ‘Crimean Leader: Kremlin Will Disintegrate If Putin Loses Key Peninsula’
