"Russia is fighting on three fronts in this war - Putin is losing on all three."

The thesis is of the British journalist Edward Lucas - a long-time researcher of Soviet and Russian foreign and domestic policy, author of the book "The New Cold War", published in 2008, months before the Russian invasion of Georgia.

All about the topic:

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At the beginning of the interview, we go back to 2021 - this time in November.

Russia was massing hundreds of thousands of troops on Ukraine's borders for the second time this year, explaining that these were only exercises and calling fears that it would attack "hysteria".

And three months later he attacked.

"We were all wrong then," observed Edward Lucas:

"The West was wrong because it thought that if Russia really attacked, Ukraine would be defeated very quickly. It is well known that Zelensky was offered to send him a helicopter in the first days of the war. To which apparently his reply was: I don't need transport, I need ammunition! And the Russians were obviously wrong because they thought they would win easily. But it turned out they couldn't.

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And the Ukrainians were probably too optimistic after the pogrom of the Russian forces in the approaches to Kyiv and seemed to think that this was only the beginning of a rapid collapse of the Russians and that they would not be able to regroup.

In fact, we witnessed a rather serious push by Russia in the Donetsk region.

As now in the region of Bakhmut."

"But the big lesson of all this is that the war is being fought on three big fronts. In the battle in Ukraine, the Ukrainians are winning and the Russians are losing. In the battle for the hearts and minds of people in the West, too. And the third battle is in Moscow - between the various factions around Putin trying to stay on top. But he's going to lose. And I think this will be his last winter, as surprising as it may sound to a lot of people.

The way out of the war is for Putin to leave and be blamed for it by the one who takes his place - that he is responsible for the painful conditions for ending the war for Russia - something like a new Brest-Litovsk peace treaty," commented Edward Lucas to BNR .

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Russian invasion of Ukraine

Vladimir Putin

Russia-Ukraine war