Putin wants to fight

This is the conclusion that Putin drew from his fiasco in Samarkand. Many were interested in how he feels about the fact that the participants of the summit did not support him in the war with Ukraine, that it was not possible to achieve even a line in the joint communiqués after the meeting with the President of the People's Republic of China, and the Prime Minister of India arranged a public rebuke to the Russian President. Here is the answer received, absolutely in Putin's style - to continue the war. Because Putin is one of those politicians who always chooses the worst solution out of all the worst options. The behavior of the leaders, on whose support Putin was counting, not only did not sober the Russian president, but it made him angry. Now he wants to prove that he is capable of destroying Ukraine not only to Western leaders, but also to Eastern ones. Therefore, he orders them to think about what further actions should be - political and military.

The first of these conclusions is already obvious. To speed ​​up the holding of "referendums" in the Russian-occupied territories. Putin's chief spokesperson, Deputy Head of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, is already speaking about this, and the Russian occupying authorities are also making similar statements. This is Putin's new tactic.

It consists in holding a referendum wherever necessary, regardless of how much of the territory of a particular region is occupied, without caring about administrative borders.  The main thing is to be present on the territory of one or another Ukrainian region, so that it does not turn out as it did with the Kharkiv region. Then to declare these territories an inseparable part of the Russian Federation, and the presence of Ukrainian troops on them is a direct threat to the security of Russia itself. And already from these positions to blackmail the world with the possible use of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.

Will the war end after the occupied regions are nominally declared Russian? Of course not.  Putin wants to turn these regions into a springboard for an attack on other Ukrainian regions that he wants to seize. Just as Crimea and Donbas have become staging grounds for an invasion in 2022. Only the victory of Ukraine's Armed Forces and the collapse of his own state can stop Putin - whenever that happens. There are no other chances to end the war he started.