With its retreat from Kherson, Russia has suffered its worst failure of the war since the invasion started to go wrong at the end of February. It has not been defeated, and still has the option of escalating to more dangerous tactics, but winter is approaching, and the war now looks set to drag through into 2023 with yet more killing, maiming and destruction.
There are competing views among the Russian military and political elites as to how to get out of the mess.
Some, including many around Putin, will be hanging on to the original aim of installing a client regime in Kyiv and pushing NATO influence several hundred kilometres to the west, away from the Russian heartland. With forward-based nuclear forces in Belarus and Ukraine, and the spread of influence westwards into Moldova and the Baltic states, a greater Russia would have emerged, with the Wagner group and other paramilitaries in the Middle East and Sahel further extending the Kremlin’s global impact.
