West discusses ways to reduce Putin's ability to continue war against Ukraine - Colonel Grant

He said this in the Studio West program with Antin Borkovskyi on Espreso TV.

"A message from Putin that he can keep this going has already been made. Everybody knows that in Brussels and Berlin. They know they've got to keep supporting Ukraine as the war is going at the moment. I don't think that they expect Putin to make the war wider for the moment because Putin has doubtedly got the ability to take the war wider and win. Because if he tries to do that, then the West will close down on many of the things that he wants to do, to make it work, which they can do," said the retired British Army colonel.

In his opinion, if the war continues as it is now, Putin will definitely not stop, and the West will have to look for new ways to slow him down. It is likely to involve more powerful sanctions and tighter control over their implementation in order to find out which processes can be stopped in this way.

"What is happening now is that people are trying to work out how to reduce Putin's ability to wage war for the long term. So you will see small things happening. Many things you will not see because they will happen between the banks. They will happen between financial institutions. They will happen between discussions between European officials, American officials and Switzerland, for example. You probably won't ever know about these. We will never know what is being said, but you can be sure that there is a lot being said behind the scenes to try and reduce Putin's ability to keep this war going in the way that it is at the moment," Glenn Grant stressed.

• On December 18, 2023, the European Union approved the 12th sanctions package against Russia. It contains a ban on the direct or indirect import, purchase or transfer of diamonds from Russia. 
• On January 3, 2024, the European Union added Alrosa, which accounts for more than 90% of all Russian diamond production, and its CEO Pavel Marynychev to the sanctions list.