Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions for the war in Ukraine are the same as they were at the outset.
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin H. Kahl said it was the Pentagon’s “sense” that Putin’s goals remain the same during the Center for a New American Security 2022 National Security Conference on Tuesday.
“I think only one person on planet Earth knows the answer to that question with 100% certainty,” he said. “But I think our sense is that he has not changed his overall objectives, that I think he has been forced to recognize that they had to narrow their operational objectives to focusing on the east.”
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Russia’s initial military objective was to topple the government quickly and install a puppet regime in the capital of Kyiv, but the first phase of the war did not go well for Moscow. Russian forces failed to get to Kyiv after meeting a more significant resistance than anticipated, and they have since been forced to refocus their operation on the east, where fighting has occurred for nearly a decade.
“So I still think he has designs on a significant portion of Ukraine, if not the whole country. That said, I do not think he can achieve those objectives,” he added. “They may make tactical gains here and there. The Ukrainians are holding up. I do not think the Russians have the capacity to achieve those grandiose objectives.”
Throughout the war, Putin has downplayed, if not disregarded, Ukraine’s sovereignty, going as far as to describe the neighboring country as “historically Russian land” and that “modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia.”
Russian forces have also hit religious and cultural sites in Ukraine, raising questions about their targets and the true intent behind them.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization reported on June 8 that Russia had damaged 65 religious sites, 27 historic buildings, 17 buildings dedicated to cultural activities, 15 monuments, 12 museums, and seven libraries since it invaded on Feb. 24.
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Michael Carpenter, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, told reporters last week that the Russian military’s targeting of Ukrainian cultural sites appears to be “systematic.”
