Expert Mölling: “Putin can’t go back. He will continue to escalate”

The Ukrainian army has recently demonstrated new skills. These have made a decisive contribution to stringing back a Russian advance near the city of Pokrowsk in Donbas despite numerical inferiority, explains security expert Christian Mölling in the latest edition of the star– s “Die Lage -International”. “The Ukrainians were very coordinated for the first time. Within a corps, three or four brigades were used to one another,” said Mölling. Maybe the first successes of the changes in the command structure that Kiev’s army had made a year ago showed the expert from the Brussels Thinktank “European Policy Center”.

In the previous course of the war, neither Russia nor Ukraine were able to effectively coordinate their individual troops in combat use. If this begins to change on the Ukrainian side, this can become a military advantage for Kiev – “with a view to the next year, the next one and a half years”. According to Mölling’s assessment, it is also noteworthy that Russia at Pokrowsk was unable to quickly reinforce reinforcement and heavy material at Pokrowsk in order to secure the initial terrain gain. However, one has to assume that “the Russians learn from this error”.

In addition, Ukraine is in the process of becoming more independent of its tentative partners in the west. This was indicated by current reports about the development of a marching aircraft with an allegedly 3000 kilometers of range and over a tonne payload. This weapon, called “Flamingo”, is said to have developed Kyiv largely independently for months. However, how effective and precisely it is has to show, says Mölling.

According to the political scientist, however, neither growing military pressure nor diplomacy will bring the Russian president to agree to an armistice in Ukraine. “He can’t go back, he can only escalate,” said Mölling about Putin. A de -escalation would be equal to the admission that he had lost the war. This is not compatible with the Russian state propaganda. That is why the West has to prepare for further escalation by Russia, the more difficult the situation for Putin on the battlefield. Even the current bottlenecks in petrol supply in Russia showed after successful attacks by Ukraine on Russia’s oil infrastructure: “The pressure on the resilience of Russian society is increasing.”