Putin's ultimatum is aimed at three audiences at once - political analyst

He expressed this opinion in an interview with Antin Borkovskyi, host of the Studio West program.

"For more than two years of active warfare, both Putin and his entourage have been producing many different descriptions of the results of the war. And now Putin, having entered a new cadence, has spoken out. Different assessments are possible here, but my answer is this: Putin did this now, focusing on three audiences at once, believing that it is beneficial for him. One audience is domestic. Putin has formed a new environment around him, shuffled all the old people and created a cabinet of endless war. In other words, he has put people he trusts very much in key positions and is setting them tasks. It's as if he wants to say, 'You signed up and you have to do this for the next six years, this should be the result of your work. This is the first point - an appeal to his own political elite and bureaucracy," the political scientist said.

According to him, the second important point is that Putin is undoubtedly addressing Ukrainian society with this ultimatum. The Kremlin has a constant belief that Ukraine must weaken itself in terms of its moral, military and political spirit, and break down before the Kremlin's irresistible power.

"After the end of President Zelenskyy's term, Putin first began to emphasise that Zelenskyy was illegitimate and impossible to negotiate with. And this statement by Putin is aimed at pushing, as the Kremlin believes, a part of Ukrainian society to accept that this will be the case, so accept it as inevitable, start changing your position and develop a new one. And the third audience is the countries of the Alliance of Global Support for Ukraine, primarily the United States. What Putin is saying here is that regardless of how the scenarios for the US elections in November develop, who will be president, the Kremlin's position is that it does not care who is president in the US, so here are our demands for how this war should end. And any US president or any NATO secretary general will have to deal with this," Morozov concluded.

• On June 14, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin said that the Ukrainian military should allegedly withdraw from the temporarily occupied territories in order to negotiate with Russia. NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg and the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry commented.