Categories: ANALYTICS

What does Putin really want?

A working scenario for the near future: D. Trump proposes to halt hostilities along the front line without the return of most of our occupied territories, particularly Crimea and Donbas. Ukraine would have to agree to this since we are entirely dependent on our partners. However, it’s unclear whether Putin would agree to these harsh conditions for Ukraine or if he would start demanding even more.

This raises a natural question: what are the real, non-propaganda objectives that the Kremlin pursues in this war?

At the start of the invasion, everything seemed clear: quickly capture Kyiv and install a puppet government under someone like Medvedchuk. Then, these collaborators would carry out the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine announced by Putin. This would involve decisions on federalization, granting Donbas “special status,” establishing Russian as an official language, and reducing the Ukrainian Armed Forces to 50,000 personnel, stripping them of heavy weaponry.

To keep the collective West from being too concerned, the aggressors, as “honest bandits,” would give up three western regions of Ukraine to “its fate.” Later, they would form a “Union State” from Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, where Kyiv and Minsk would lose even their formal independence.

But thanks to the heroic resistance of Ukrainians, this blitzkrieg failed. So the Kremlin had to switch to a new plan, which it does not announce publicly but continues to pursue persistently.

The Moscow cannibals clearly understand that we will not give them this war, with its many thousands of casualties and massive destruction, as a gift. And we will seek revenge at every opportunity. At the very least, the active part of Ukrainian society will do this. That’s why Russia wants to deprive us of the very physical means to punish the aggressor.

To achieve this, Russia wants to turn as much of Ukraine as possible into a territory unfit for civilized life: without electricity, heat, water, or communication, so that more Ukrainians are forced to emigrate. Additionally, the aggressor aims to destroy Ukraine’s heavy industry to the maximum extent possible so that we cannot restart our defense industry and rearm ourselves. The defense industry, let me remind you, is not just about missiles, guns, drones, and other weapons, but also the production of materials used to make weapons, and the machines to process those materials, and so forth.

This is why the enemy systematically attacks Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Odesa, and Lviv — our industrial centers. This is why the enemy does not occupy but deliberately destroys cities in the Donbas, as this is where Ukraine’s heavy industry is concentrated.

The Kremlin is betting that our partners will help us restore public infrastructure, but that they will not seriously invest in our defense industry, as this would almost certainly lead to a new war. And the Kremlin believes that Ukraine will not be able to restore its defense industry on its own.

If the crumbling empire destroys our heavy industry and significantly damages our energy sector, thus blocking our path to developing defense capabilities, then the new goals of the war will have been achieved. At that point, it will agree to freeze hostilities on the condition that Ukraine does not join NATO.

Everything I have laid out is a completely realistic scenario. However, I am not sure that the Ukrainian leadership is aware of it, let alone the leadership of the United States. This must be the basis for implementing any peace plan.

Alexandr Kochetkov