Putin prepares for long war to implement 'Korean scenario' in Ukraine - Colonel Grant

He said this in an interview with Anton Borkovsky, host of the Studio West program on Espreso TV channel.

"Russia is lining itself up for two or three years or maybe even 10 or 15 years of protracted war and just keep banging away at Ukraine until Ukraine breaks. All the West breaks one or the other, probably looking at the Korean scenario in their minds that we can actually get them to a stalemate. And then we get a boundary and we get East Ukraine or Nova Russia and Ukraine and that's obviously what they're hoping for," he said.

According to him, everything indicates that the Russians are carefully mobilizing so that it doesn't create chaos in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. But for the rest of the country steady mobilization, increasing the ability to deliver weapons to the front line and they're also doing some quite clever things in electronic warfare that we would probably not have expected 12 months ago. Russia itself has got a sort of a crossing point where at one stage the defense is going up, and at the other stage the economy is going down.

"The good thing in some ways is that the general staff in Russia are not very clever. They're intelligent in their specific job, but they're not clever overall in their thinking strategically. It's quite possible that in loading the country to just for defense that they actually break the economics altogether. We know that the economy in Russia is very suspect in many areas. For example, the airlines are close to collapse in some places because they can't get the spares and because they can't actually keep the planes working properly in the air. That's a reflection of some areas in the economy. And if the airlines collapse or some of the airlines collapse, then other things must be close to collapse as well," Grant emphasized.

Another point is that China looks as though it may be pulling back slightly from Russia, the military expert believes.

"Some of the talks that have been lately look as though the Chinese realize that their future lies with the economy of the West. It doesn't lie with the economy of Russia. There's no economy of Russia to help China. China will go down the tubes if they rely on Russia. But they do rely on the European Union and America and that's where their money is. That's where their investments are, and that's where their markets are. China can't survive without the markets of the European Union and America. There will be people telling the Chinese government now. Hey, hey stop, you've pulled this too far to one side. And what are we getting from Russia? Old military equipment? No, thank you. So there are things happening which the long game may work against Russia," he summarized.

• On February 25, 2022, Serhiy Nikiforov said that Ukraine had agreed to negotiate with Russia. 
• Arakhamia assured that the Ukrainian delegation would negotiate only in the direction it wanted.
• After the first round of talks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that negotiations with the Russian Federation had not yet yielded the result that Ukraine would like to see.
• Delegations from Ukraine and Russia have not held talks on ending the Russian invasion for more than a year. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that despite the difficulties on the battlefield, there is no stalemate in the war and Ukraine is not ready for peace at any cost.
• On Wednesday, November 22, during a virtual summit of the G20 countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia had never refused to negotiate to end the war with Ukraine.
• The head of the Servant of the People parliamentary faction, Davyd Arakhamia, said that Russia was ready to end the war if Ukraine declared neutrality - Arakhamia on negotiations with Russia in the spring of 2022.