Putin will try to raise stakes –that will be his end, says diplomat Chaly

Valeriy Chaly, Chairman of the Board of the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine, said this on Espreso TV.

"I think they’ll make a move now. Putin will try to shift the responsibility, raise the bar even higher. And that will be the finale. This will be the finale. I don't know which path they’ll choose, but it makes sense. He now has to show again that he’s the tsar over there, rally people around him. They basically have three options. The first is mobilizing the country — full mobilization, aiming for an extra 300,000 troops, ideally. The second is returning to nuclear threats, playing the weapons of mass destruction card again," he said.

Valeriy Chaly believes that whichever route Putin takes, it’ll end up being a bluff.

"And the third option is sticking to previous tactics, but with the message: 'We’ll fight for 20 years,' as long as it takes, the whole country’s on board, people will do it — even if no one knows why. And all of this will turn into a bluff eventually. But unfortunately, it won’t be a bluff in the short term. In my view, we’re entering a critical period not just for Ukraine, but for Russia too. That’s autumn to spring. I call it a window of opportunity. It doesn’t mean the war can definitely be stopped then, but the window is real," the diplomat said.

• On June 5, Ukrainian Armed Forces units launched a missile strike on a Russian missile forces concentration area, hitting several Iskander launch system positions.