Putin shifts tactics. Vitaly Portnikov's column

While Putin previously aimed to destroy a neighboring state and annex its territory to the Russian Federation, he now primarily seeks to strengthen control over occupied Ukrainian territories and focus on reviving Russia’s economy, which has been heavily affected by Western sanctions and strained by the military's growing demands.

At the same time, it remains unclear how long Putin is willing to stick to this approach. On one hand, his current focus on consolidating control over occupied Ukrainian territories could open the door for a potential Trump administration to negotiate a ceasefire on the Russian-Ukrainian front - or even a peace deal that would formalize the current front line.

“However, as we understand, Putin will likely try to leverage Trump’s interest in such a peace deal to further his demands, primarily insisting on the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions, as well as seeking legal recognition of the occupation’s consequences - if not by Ukraine itself, then at least by the United States.”

Most European officials, as reported by American journalists, are convinced that this is not the final chapter of Putin's plans. The Russian president is unlikely to fully abandon his maximalist goals. Therefore, after a possible pause in the war, it is possible that he will again attempt to violate any agreements brokered by the Trump administration. This could lead to the resumption of hostilities in Ukraine with the goal of capturing more Ukrainian territory and, likely, the eventual destruction of the Ukrainian state. This, as we understand, was the main objective of Putin’s so-called "great war" against Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, and after the failure of his blitzkrieg turned into a prolonged war of attrition.

On the other hand, it is clear that the Russians may be trying to create the impression among Western politicians and intelligence agencies that they are no longer willing to continue their expansion on Ukrainian territory. This would aim to create an illusion of the possibility of quick agreements and reduce military support for Ukraine from the United States, the United Kingdom, and European Union countries.

Therefore, I would certainly be cautious about any information suggesting a shift in Putin's tactics. The tactics may indeed change, simply because the Russian president may lack the resources to continue advancing his army across Ukrainian land. Moreover, the strategy of attrition warfare is not yielding the short-term results Putin hoped for when he resorted to terror against the civilian Ukrainian population, failing to force Ukrainian society into a swift capitulation before a brutal aggressor.

But the strategy, as we know, is not only about Ukraine. 

“Putin is fixated on overcoming the consequences of the so-called mistake of 1991, when the Soviet Union, this communist and chauvinistic Russian empire, disappeared from the political map of the world as if it had never been there. For the Soviet chekists, who worked to seize power in the entire state through prohibition and the eventual marginalization of the Communist Party and past ideological sentiments, the collapse of the Soviet Union was a painful and unexpected defeat.”

Therefore, all the efforts of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation and Putin, who is a representative of the Russian chekists in the Kremlin, are focused on the need to restore the so-called territorial integrity of the true Russian state, under which they continue to understand the Soviet Union at Lubyanka. Without Ukraine, without its subjugation, without Russian troops reaching Ukrainian Transcarpathia, there can be no talk of restoring the former capabilities of the Soviet empire. And that is why Putin is unlikely to abandon the war against Ukraine. However, the fact that the Russian president is willing to take a pause, realizing that continuing the military actions may lead to a further deterioration of Russian-American relations, and thus new, even unexpected sanctions from the Trump administration against the Russian economy, already significantly damaged by sanctions influence, could indeed be an important argument in the coming months and years. The question is who and how will use the pause.

If Ukraine relaxes after a potential ceasefire or even a peace agreement, and if there is an increasing societal sentiment that a new major war is impossible, leading to efforts to find understanding and coexistence with the Russian Federation, it would undoubtedly result in a new, even more unexpected and devastating blow from the Russians to Ukrainian statehood. This could be bloody and brutal, leading to Ukraine losing, if not its independence, then at least its sovereignty and the ability to make decisions about its further development and geopolitical choices.

If Ukraine transforms into a fortress state, with the main purpose of its existence in the coming decades being the understanding of the necessity to resist potential Russian aggression and to strengthen Ukrainian identity by erasing the colonial legacy of the neighboring state, then Ukraine would have, though not absolute, but real chances of survival. And with the Ukrainian state, the Ukrainian people would have a chance to survive too, as, in the event of the disappearance of Ukrainian statehood, such chances would be practically nonexistent.

Source

About the author: Vitaly Portnikov, journalist, laureate of the National Prize of Ukraine named after Shevchenko.

The editors do not always share the views expressed by the blog authors.