Against all strategic rationale, Russian troops keep pushing Ukrainian defenses beyond Avdiivka and Bakhmut, paying a heavy price in casualties for every inch gained. The primary reason for these self-destructive attacks is to maintain the initiative necessary to prove Russia’s upper hand in the “long war.”
Putin finds it necessary to declare readiness to end the war, a point he mentioned last week at a meeting with Belarusian President and Putin ally Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Here are the two in St Petersburg in January. Photo: Contributor/Getty Images
This illusion of control gives Russian President Vladimir Putin the confidence to claim that all his original goals for the “special military operation” — amounting to the dismantling of Ukraine and innervation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) — will be achieved.
Simultaneously, he finds it necessary to declare readiness to end the war, a point he mentioned last week at a meeting with Belarusian President and Putin ally Alyaksandr Lukashenka (Kommersant, April 12). Increased international calls for peace talks have painted the Kremlin leader into a corner as Moscow seems unable to provide effective solutions for quelling domestic strife and achieving victory in Ukraine.Read More
