Putin's 'dangerous weakness'

The Russian president, weakened by the Ukrainian counter-offensive in the north-east of the country, announced on September 21 the mobilization of 300,000 reservists, leading to the flight of many men to Turkey and Serbia in particular, explain it Spiegel (Other destinations such as Finland, Mongolia and Kazakhstan have been cited by the foreign press. At the same time, from September 23 until September 27, Russia is holding referendums in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republics ( DPR) and Luhansk (LPR), as well as in the territories controlled by Russian forces in the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions.

There won’t be “no turning back” conceivable, neither for Vladimir Putin, nor for those who took to the road to avoid war. The German magazine displays on its front page a Russian president with a swollen face and wearing, as a cockade, the map of Ukraine with the title “dangerous weakness”.

Putin deprived himself of the possibility of returning to his destructive adventure. The same man who values maximum maneuverability has committed to a single strategy, like an unlucky player who doubles down because he can’t leave the table. He now takes maximum risks.”

Meanwhile, the population is panicking, reports the German magazine, which was able to interview many people affected by conscription. Lawyer Alexey Tabalov, head of the non-governmental organization “School for Recruits”, has to repeatedly explain to mothers, sisters and wives on the phone that their sons, brothers and husbands are unlikely to avoid conscription.

We are far from the optimism that prevailed at the start of the war last February. “The attack [de Poutine] against Ukraine should not look like a war for its own people, it was just a ‘special military operation’ according to the official terminology.” It took six months for the Russian president to break his initial promise. His reversal is perhaps due to the abandonment of the heads of state of countries that were allies at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization which took place on September 16 in Samarkand.