On Monday night, Putin gave a magazine history lesson for the Kremlin, presenting Ukraine as an artificial country inseparable from Russia. He urged his neighbor to immediately stop “their military operations” against the separatists, which would make them “responsible for incessant bloodshed.”
The Senate yesterday authorized Putin to send troops to pro-Russian eastern Ukraine, but the president said he will only make that decision based on the situation “on the ground.”
scenarios
Different scenarios that Russia could project in Ukraine:
Washington and London have been warning for weeks of clear signs that Putin is preparing to order an invasion of Ukraine, including the occupation of its capital, Kiev.
“Everything indicates that Russia continues to plan a large-scale attack against Ukraine,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also said on Tuesday.
The United States has withdrawn its diplomats from the pro-Western country and described Putin’s decision to recognize the independence of the pro-Russian regions as “the beginning of an invasion”.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the maneuvers announced by the Kremlin would serve as “a pretext to launch a major offensive.”
In recent weeks, Russia has deployed some 150,000 troops on its borders with Ukraine. For many experts, this maneuver cannot have the sole objective of supporting the recognition of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which are already under the control of the pro-Russian separatists.
“This is a first step in what will undoubtedly be a large-scale military operation to impose regime change,” said Michael Kofman, director-Russia specialist at the US Naval Analysis Center.
Although Russia considers it too risky politically and militarily to try to take Kiev, it can always opt for a more limited incursion into Ukrainian territory.
The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR) do not control the so-called administrative regions as a whole, but claim jurisdiction over them.
Accuracies
Moscow could deploy its troops with the aim of expelling the Ukrainian government from all of these regions, given that the Kremlin has not specified which geographical borders it recognizes for these separatist provinces.
Russia could be tempted to push its pawns south, towards the city of Mariupol, in order to establish a territorial connection with the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, but only connected to Russia. over a bridge.
Official Russian media present the recognition of both Ukrainian regions as a victory for Moscow. But certain experts estimate that it will be difficult for Putin to go further, because Russia would be severely affected by new sanctions, such as the one that Germany has just adopted, by suspending the “Nord-Stream 2” gas pipeline project, which is key to Berlin by same as for Moscow (see separate).
“Russia-Ukraine: it is not a major war. In fact, at the moment it is about a stabilization of the front line,” said Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Center in the Russian capital.
AFP Agency
Source: Ambito
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