As Ukraine smashes through more Russian lines, Russians wonder whom to blame

ON OCTOBER 3RD Russia’s lower house rubber-stamped Vladimir Putin’s attempted annexation of four Ukrainian provinces. Ukraine is paying no attention. Forty-eight hours before Russian deputies rose to their feet to applaud the unanimous vote, Ukrainian tanks had rolled into Lyman, a strategic hub in the eastern province of Donetsk that Mr Putin claimed as his own. Later that evening, six Ukrainian battalions pierced enemy lines 200 miles (320km) away, in north-east Kherson. By the time Russian soldiers were making SOS appeals on social media for emergency aviation support, the Ukrainians were at least 12 miles behind enemy lines. Since then, the Ukrainians have pushed on further, liberating thousands of square kilometres of territory and two dozen villages in the process.

It is unclear how far either operation will eventually carry the Ukrainians. A more general Russian collapse is not impossible. At the very least, the ongoing operations represent a humiliating political defeat for Russia’s president, coming so soon after he tried to formalise the theft of land he does not fully control. If the four provinces are part of Russia, they are presumably sheltered by its nuclear umbrella. Yet Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, cannot even say where their borders lie. Speaking on October 3rd, he waffled as he tried to define them.