Since Putin Knows Russia Can't Win, He's Pushing To 'Freeze' Ukraine Conflict

It's the only way Putin can get what his military has proven incapable of taking. JL

Isabel Van Brugen reports in Newsweek:

It is clear that Russia sees it "can't win" the war in Ukraine, Maxim Kalashnikov, a Russian military correspondent said, lamenting a shortage of troops. Moscow has recently raised the prospect of peace talks with Ukraine, demanding that the country cede territory occupied by Russian forces. "There is a struggle to freeze the conflict. It's clear that Moscow sees that it can't win. Now everyone is talking about a truce."

It is clear that Russia sees it "can't win" the war in Ukraine, Maxim Kalashnikov, a Russian propagandist and military correspondent has said, lamenting a shortage of troops.

 

Kalashnikov, who founded the social movement the Club of Angry Patriots in April 2023 alongside now-jailed Russian nationalist Igor Girkin, made the remarks in a video posted on his Telegram channel earlier this month.

 

Moscow has recently raised the prospect of peace talks with Ukraine, more than two years into the war launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin in February 2022, demanding that the war-torn country cede territory occupied by Russian forces.

 

"I feel in my soul that the [war] might end somewhere in the vicinity of the North Caucasus. We don't have enough troops... we even throw the wounded who haven't been completely healed to the front," Kalashnikov said.

"It's a scary problem. It's clear that, right now, there is a struggle to freeze the conflict. It's clear that Moscow sees that it can't win. Now everyone is talking about a truce, yes?" the military correspondent added.

 

Kalashnikov has been openly critical of the handling of the war in Ukraine and the high casualties sustained by Russia's military.

 

The Club of Angry Patriots, which was disbanded after Girkin's arrest in July, said it was concerned that Russia will lose in Ukraine, which could lead to a pro-Western coup and a Russian civil war.

 

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank said the movement aimed to increase pressure on Putin.

In June, the Russian leader set out a number of requirements for Russia to begin peace talks with Ukraine.

 

The Kremlin had previously specified a few conditions Russia considers nonnegotiable. These include Ukraine accepting the September 2022 annexation of four of its regions—Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia—following referendums called by Putin that were deemed illegal by the international community.

On June 14, Putin said Ukraine must also renounce any plans to join the NATO military alliance.

Kyiv has said that any peace deal must invalidate the September 2022 annexations of its territory, and that the Crimean Peninsula, which Putin annexed in 2014, must once again be considered part of Ukraine.

 

Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's former president and prime minister, said on July 10 that Russia will seek to occupy "remaining [Ukrainian] lands," even if President Volodymyr Zelensky agrees to the Kremlin's most recent conditions for peace.

In a post on his Telegram channel, Medvedev, now deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, said Zelensky agreeing to Putin's most recent conditions for peace will not constitute the "end of the Russian military operation" in Ukraine.

"Even after signing the papers and accepting defeat, the remaining radicals, after regrouping their forces, will sooner or later return to power, inspired by Russia's Western enemies. And then the time will come to finally crush the reptile. To drive a long steel nail into the coffin lid of Bandera's quasi-state," Medvedev said.

Russia will eventually return "remaining [Ukrainian] lands to the bosom of the Russian land," Medvedev wrote.

 

Medvedev was likely referring to Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian ultranationalist who sided with the Nazis during World War II and created the Ukrainian National Army, which fought against the Soviet Union.