ISW: Putin wants to force the West to "surrender" Ukraine and dismantle NATO
Kyiv • UNN
Putin's demands regarding the cessation of war in Ukraine indicate the Kremlin's desire to force the West to "surrender" Ukraine and dismantle NATO. Russia intends to increase its territorial claims.
The demands of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin regarding the cessation of the war in Ukraine indicate the Kremlin's desire to force the West to "surrender" Ukraine and destroy NATO. This is stated in a material of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), reports UNN.
Details
Analysts point out that Kremlin officials have repeatedly accused Kyiv of discriminating against Russian-speaking citizens in order to justify calls for regime change in Ukraine and the establishment of a pro-Kremlin puppet regime.
Russia's demands for a ban on NATO expansion, Ukraine's neutrality and regime change are the same demands that Russia made before the war in 2021 and when Putin began his full-scale invasion in February 2022
Experts also suggest that it will probably be difficult for Russia to completely capture all four previously occupied regions, especially since the capture of a strong belt of fortifications in the Donetsk region and the forcing of the Dnipro River in the Kherson region will require significantly larger groups of forces than those currently deployed in eastern and southern Ukraine.
"The Russian military command would focus its efforts exclusively on capturing all four regions if the Kremlin's territorial ambitions were really limited to the four regions, but the deployment of significant forces for the offensive in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions suggests that Russia intends to increase its territorial demands," the analysts summarize.
Recall
On the eve, Reuters, citing its own sources, reported that Putin is ready to end the war in Ukraine if Western leaders make a written commitment to stop NATO expansion to the east and lift some sanctions against Russia.
Later, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that if Ukraine is not present at the NATO summit, which will be held in The Hague in June, it will be a victory for Putin, but not over Ukraine, but over the Alliance.
