Russian troops have ostensibly refocused their efforts in Ukraine to the Donbas region away from toppling Kyiv, and it could be a move to save face, according to experts.
The Russians invaded Ukraine four-and-a-half weeks ago, and the results have been disastrous thus far for them. They have suffered from food and fuel shortages, poor preparation for harsh weather conditions, and Ukrainian resistance forces that have been a much fiercer opponent than the Russians were expecting.
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A senior U.S. defense official told reporters Monday that Russian forces “remain certainly around Kyiv very much in a defensive posture,” whereas the “Ukrainians are continuing to take back ground.”
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Days earlier, the official said the Russians were “putting their priorities and their efforts in the east of Ukraine,” adding, “That’s where still there remains a lot of heavy fighting, and we think they are trying to not only secure some sort of more substantial gains there as a potential negotiating tactic at the table, but also to cut off Ukrainian forces in the eastern part of the country.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has “now put himself in a position where he doesn’t have a lot of options. He has removed his own options,” Leah Scheunemann, the deputy director of the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security within the Atlantic Council, told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday.
“So when we, as the West, consider diplomatic offerings, although, ultimately, the conclusion and all the negotiations are led by the Ukrainians and it’s the Ukrainian government and their people’s decision,” she added. “But I think that from Putin’s perspective, which is kind of impossible to tell, he wants a win out of this, something he can walk away with as a win. And it seems like the strategic focus by Moscow, it publicly stated to focus on the Donbas region, could be what Russia’s going-in position is for negotiations.”
There have been “shifting dynamics” recently in Kyiv, where Ukrainians have held off Russian forces, Gen. Tod Wolters, the head of U.S. European Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. The change came after Ukrainians successfully pushed Russian troops further away from the capital.
Similarly, Giselle Donnelly, a senior fellow in defense and national security at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Examiner that a logical way for the Russian leader to “declare victory” would be to “secure the Black Sea corridor to Crimea, from the Donbas, and pretend that the whole war had been about consolidating the breakaway republics in eastern Ukraine,” adding that “they may be putting lipstick on a pig.”
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A deal to end the war between Ukraine and Russia would be “unacceptable” to the former if it involved giving up territory, Donnelly added, later saying that the Russian military’s continued bombardment and attacks on civilians in the southeastern part of the country amount to “ruining a village in order to save it.”
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed that “liberating” the Donbas was the main goal of the military operation, and Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday that the comment “may be an effort to move the goalposts.”
Kirby also warned that, in his estimation, the threat to Kyiv has not been “radically diminished” despite reports that Russian troops have been moving away from the capital.
