Dmitry Oreshkin: “Russia as a form of civilization has already been defeated: if Putin has rushed into Ukraine with an army, it means that he could not offer it a more attractive project than the West.
If they didn’t want NATO expansion, here is NATO expansion for you. Is that a victory? No, this is also a defeat. Only not yet realized.
The Russian world has become toxic. It is shameful to speak Russian. The Orthodox Church has collapsed: it has already been expelled from Constantinople.
The ruble is slipping, so is the demographics: Russia is the only major country in the world that is catastrophically losing population. But the main trouble is that Putin has led the state into a reign of terror.
The key to the Russia of the future is in the hands of Ukraine, whether Ukrainians like it or not. Without conscious defeat on the battlefield, the Russia of the future is impossible.
Putin’s real defeat will be the loss of Crimea. But the inability to take Bakhmut already undermines his authority”.
