Putin is either “escalating to de-escalate” with the expectation that Trump will pressure Zelensky into complying with more of Russia’s terms for peace, namely withdrawing from Donbass at minimum, or as a “last hurrah” before speculatively freezing the conflict for political and strategic purposes.
To read this article in the following languages, click theTranslate Websitebutton below the author’s name.
Русский, Farsi, Español, 中文,Portugues,Français, عربي, Hebrew, Deutsch, Italiano, 日本語,한국어, Türkçe, Српски. And 40 more languages.
RussianForeign Minister Sergey Lavrovnotifiedhis US counterpartMarco Rubiothat Russia will conduct “systematic strikes” against military-industrial sites, command centers, and other targets in and around Kiev in response to Ukrainian terrorist attacks like the recent one inStarobelsk. This follows the Russian Defense Ministry’shardliner-inspired threatof a massive retaliatory strike on Kiev if Ukraine attacked Moscow’s Victory Day parade and comes right after Russia’sfirst Oreshnik retaliationfor Starobelsk.
Strategic strikes of the sort that the state-of-the-art Oreshniks are associated with aren’t ever carried out spontaneously since they require lots of preparation. It can therefore be concluded that such work was already completed by the end of April at the latest ahead of Russia’s threat in the lead-up to Victory Day given the likelihood that Ukraine would seriously consider attacking the parade in Moscow. Even though Zelensky backed down, Russia’s plans remained in place to be unleashed during his next provocation.
By late April, the time when the aforesaid plans were reasonably completed, three political factors that could possibly influence Putin’s calculations towards thespecial operationwere already in place. It was clear by then that the Republicans would likely lose November’s midterms, in which case no deal with even partial sanctions relief could realistically receive Congressional approval till 2029 at the earliest. Then there are September’s Duma elections around which speculation is swirling about a protest vote.
The ruling partyonly won 49.82% of the voteduring the last elections in 2021 when the economic, security, and social situations were better. Given the economic downturn, reduced security, and internet restrictions since then, it’s difficult to imagine them maintaining that tally. Without an end to the special operation that’s presented as a success or at least complying with the public’s demands for “systematic strikes”, United Russia might end up having to form a coalition with the communists or nationalists.
The final factor was Putin’s plans by then tovisit Chinain May, which were speculatedhereas him offering Xi a de facto alliance against the West on equal terms. Without Chinese financial and military-technical assistance, which would risk the US’ wrath, Russia might struggle to continue the special operation till 2029 per the earlier calculation. Regardless of whether Xi agreed, and there’s no indication that he did, the preplanned “systematic strike” campaign was going to become a political factor in itself.
The purpose is to inflict such significant damage to Ukraine that Zelensky isfinally coercedeither by these attacks or consequent verbal pressure from Trump into withdrawing from Donbass in exchange for aceasefireper the Anchorage quid pro quo that RT reminded readers ofhere. If Xi had agreed to Putin’s speculative alliance proposal, then it wouldn’t matter much whether Zelensky complied, but since Xi didn’t, Putin would now have to decide what to do if Zelensky remains recalcitrant despite these strikes.
One scenario is that these “systematic strikes” are the pretext for Trump, per what might be a pre-agreed sequence between him and Putin duringtheir last call in late April, to reduce or outright end US arms sales to NATO for indirectly supplying Ukraine unless Zelensky withdraws from Donbass. The grounds could be that Trump wants to de-escalate the conflict before it spirals further out of control while his political motive could be to end it before the midterms to cushion the Republicans’ expected defeat.
Source: Global Research
