The United States and its allies have widely interpreted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s initial goals of his military operation in Ukraine as aiming to seize Kyiv within days and replace the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with a pro-Russian regime, which he has not been able to achieve so far.
A senior US official, whose name was not revealed by the newspaper, said that indications show that more than 3 weeks of fierce fighting and fierce resistance to Ukrainian forces prompted Putin to adjust his tactics.
As for the new assessment of the Russian president’s intentions, according to senior officials in the Biden administration, it indicates that Moscow will work to force Kyiv to accept Russian claims to Ukrainian regions in the south and east after seizing Crimea in 2014, and Russia will also seek to secure a “land bridge” between western and eastern Ukraine. Russia and Crimea, the expansion of Russian control over the Donbass region.
It is expected that Putin will continue his military pressure, including the bombing of Ukrainian cities, considering that he will lead the Ukrainian president to abandon his hopes of joining the West and agree to a neutral status and other Russian demands.
US officials said that if Zelensky rejects Putin’s demands for territory and neutrality, the Russian president is expected to try to keep and fight all the territory his forces have captured, while another US official indicated that Russian forces would focus increasingly on siege tactics.
The American newspaper also revealed that this adjustment in the Russian military strategy may mean the continuation of military confrontations for the coming weeks and perhaps months, through more attacks by the Russian army, which often depends on firing missiles and artillery from a distance.
Putin’s demands
Earlier, the Russian President revealed his demands for the withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine, the most prominent of which was the need for Ukraine to be neutral and not to join NATO.
Other demands include Ukraine undergoing a demilitarization process to ensure that the country does not pose a threat to Russia in the future, and that the Russian language should enjoy legal protection in the country.
The most difficult requirement is face-to-face negotiations between Putin and Zelensky before deciding on a peacekeeping agreement, as he put Donbass in eastern Ukraine, with the assumption that Russia will demand that the Ukrainian government give up that area.
Russia is also likely to ask Ukraine to formally agree that Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014, belongs to Russia.
The Russian President had accused the Ukrainian authorities of “procrastinating” in the negotiations, but added that Moscow was ready to search for solutions, during a call he made with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
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