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Russians 'imagining life beyond' weak Vladimir Putin, West officials say: Report
Vladimir Putin: Western officials believe that Vladimir Putin has been weakened owing to which there is growing unhappiness in Russia.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has been 'weakened' amid Moscow's invasion of Ukraine but there won't be a leadership change 'anytime soon', Western officials said. Facing a series of humiliating blows on the battlefield in recent weeks, Vladimir Putin's nuclear rhetoric has raised alarm in the West which sees the possibility of the Russian president resorting to nuclear weapons in hopes of an easy victory.
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Western officials believe that Vladimir Putin has been weakened owing to which there is growing unhappiness in Russia. Officials also said that Vladimir Putin's “error” in invading Ukraine has damaged the Russian leader's domestic politics with reported concerns among some elites about the impact of the war.
"This is going to continue to be a long, difficult, bloody conflict," a Western official told Sky News.
“He's been weakened by this really catastrophic error,” the official added.
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Internally, people in Russia are "talking more about what comes next" and are "imagining a life beyond", the official said, adding that this is not going to happen "anytime soon" with no "likely prospect of change in the near future".
In Ukraine, Russia signaled that it could pull its troops from the west bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson while urging civilians to leave. The retreat that would be a blow to Russia's war is being seen with caution by Ukraine suggesting Russia could be setting a trap for advancing Ukrainian troops.
