Support for Vladimir Putin’s regime is narrowing fast

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"Russia, russia, russia,” chanted Vladimir Putin on September 30th, as he announced the annexation of four Ukrainian provinces: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson. But within hours his newly expanded country began shrinking. The Ukrainian army smashed through Russia’s left and right flanks, at the two extremes of a vast front stretching from the Black Sea in the south to the Donbas region in the east (see map). “Not since the initial part of Operation Barbarossa in the second world war has the Russian army had such a terrible series of reverses on the battlefield,” says Mick Ryan, a retired Australian general.

The war is by no means over. Russia still occupies some 15% of Ukrainian territory. Its army will soon swell as the forced mobilisation of some 300,000 reservists announced last month gathers pace. But for the first time in seven months of war, time and momentum are on Ukraine’s side.

On October 1st Ukrainian tanks rolled into Lyman, a strategic hub in Donetsk. Later that evening six Ukrainian battalions pierced enemy lines 200 miles (320km) away, in the northern part of Kherson. By the time Russian soldiers were making appeals for emergency air support via social media, the Ukrainians had advanced at least 12 miles. “The enemy has superiority in everything,” wrote Igor Girkin, who led Russia’s first invasion of Donbas, in 2014, “even using aviation.” By October 6th Russian forces had fallen even farther back towards the city of Kherson.

In Donbas (which comprises the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk), Ukraine is tantalisingly close to routing its enemy. It is bearing down on weak Russian defensive lines near the towns of Kreminna and Svatove in northern Luhansk. A member of Ukraine’s military intelligence predicts that Russia will soon be forced to retreat from Kreminna to save artillery and other equipment. Svatove is an equally important target, as the site of large ammunition stores and a gateway to the rest of Luhansk. Pushing the Russians back to the lines that existed before the start of the current fighting in February would not be difficult after taking the town, the source said.

The battle for Kherson is even more significant. The province forms one end of a “land bridge” linking the Crimean peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014, to Russia. It is also the source of much of Crimea’s water. The city of Kherson is one of Ukraine’s main ports on the Black Sea, and the gateway to the others; the loss of it puts all Ukraine’s maritime trade in jeopardy.