Professor Scott Lucas explained how Putin’s gains had been completely “undone” in the past few weeks as Ukrainian forces continue to advance and claim back their territory.
The University of Birmingham academic claimed that Vladimir Putin “is losing” his battle in Ukraine as the losses suffered by Russia in recent weeks are extremely significant. Professor Lucas explained how significant it was that Ukrainian forces had managed to seize back key areas of their land which were previously under Russian control in recent weeks. The academic claimed that Ukrainian forces were now in a good position to seize back Crimea which had been illegally annexed by Putin in 2014.
Professor Lucas warned that Putin underestimated the support from the West to Ukraine and thought he could isolate the country from the international community.
He told GB News: “Vladimir Putin is losing, that is how significant this is.
“Seven months after the Russian invasion what Ukraine has done in just a matter of weeks and the past month is they’ve regained much of the territory that Russia took during the invasion.
“That includes the North-East: the Kharkiv region it includes parts of what we call Donetsk and Luhansk which is in the East and the big breakthrough on Monday was an advance of about 20 miles against the Russians in the South in Kherson.
Prof Lucas added: “But secondly Ukraine is now on the verge of being able to move into territory that the Russians have controlled since 2014 through their proxies.
“That includes what we call the Donbas region in the Est and it includes Crimea, this big peninsula that Putin just seized that he just annexed without really a fight back from anyone eight years ago.
“So Putin who made this big gamble well he gambled on two points, James Cleverly raised them, first he said you know if I go in quickly I can take Kyiv and I can get rid of Volodymyr Zelensky and his government, I can occupy within days, weeks… Failure.
“Secondly I can split off Ukraine from the international community and isolate it, people won’t risk the cost of supporting it politically, economically, militarily… Failure.
“Does he go for a third failure? By annexing these territories and calling them Russian, well that is exactly what he did last Friday and within days that is coming undone.”
Putin has faced a number of losses as Ukraine has managed to successfully regain significant regions of its land.
Putin’s original plan in February was to storm Ukraine and have the country under Russian control within three days, this plan has taken well over seven months and is still not completed.
Throughout the ongoing illegal invasion, Ukraine has received much global support from Western countries who have vowed to help their pushback on the Russian onslaught in the form of Russian sanctions, and by sending Ukrainian troops top-of-the-range weapons systems.
Atlantic Council think tank’s Alp Sevimlisoy told MailOnline a similar theory as Professor Lucas: “I can’t see a future for Putin [if he loses the war]. How do you go back to your people after this?”
He added: “The Ukrainians have the momentum – they are winning. But this conflict won’t just end with both sides going away and saying ‘that’s that’, it will reverberate throughout Russia and the region.
“I think collapse will come from infighting in the intelligence services and military, and forces within Russia will see to use this as opportunity to say: ‘We can govern ourselves better and we have enough international support to push for independence.’ We should definitely support that.”
Alp Sevimlisoy originally featured as per: Daily Express
