1) The new goal of “SVO” is to release all Russian military captured by the Armed Forces of Ukraine – Shoigu
2) “Ukraine can get NATO membership in exchange for transferring part of the territory to Russia, and this could be part of the end of the war in Ukraine,” – Head of NATO Secretary General’s Office Stian Jensen
“I’m not saying that it should be that way. But it could be a possible solution. Ukraine should decide for itself when and under what conditions it wants to negotiate,” he said.
3) “How long will the war last? The path to victory will be long and difficult. “2-3 weeks”, “until the end of the year”, “next spring” – all this is not true, “- Vereshchuk
“We must prepare ourselves for a long struggle. Citizens and authorities – all must prepare ourselves for a long and difficult war. And only then will we win.”
We interpret:
1) The goals of the war are still not clear to anyone, including those who inspired this war. And this vagueness of the wording makes it possible for the Russian Federation to get out of the captivity of military defeat. According to sources from the agency responsible for information and propaganda, “the variability of goals allows us to interpret any outcome as a victory: Shoigu, if you were careful, said that Ukrainian military power was coming to an end, which means that, referring to these words, one can call “demilitarization” accomplished; the same applies to denazification, where there are no specific criteria for success at all.
Here it is worth noting additionally that Putin himself created the problem of getting out of the war by inscribing the occupied territories into the Constitution. And it is impossible to remove these territories from there unless the Constitution is changed again. There are no other “obstacles”: after Prigozhin’s rebellion, the system was pretty much cleaned up, leaving only blindly loyal to Putin and / or Patrushev (depending on the clan), and technocrats who do not influence the power processes, but try (unsuccessfully) to create an economic substratum for them.
2) NATO announces the concept of “two Koreas” / “Germany-GDR” – this is the Kissinger model. It was even indirectly supported by the Russian leadership (albeit quite vulgarly – through the mouth of Medvedev with his alcohol trips), but the concept of “withdrawing from the war” with the inclusion of Ukraine in NATO is welcomed by Russia in its exclusive hope for Trump.
(The reason is that the Russian Federation is confident in Trump’s victory in the elections, and he, in turn, promised (several times non-publicly and a couple of times publicly) to eliminate NATO as an unviable structure).
And this is included in the model of “freezing the war along the front line” repeatedly described on the channel with the inclusion of territories controlled by Ukraine into NATO.
But Russia has another little rat here: Russia knows that Erdogan will accept Ukraine into NATO, but Hungary will not, so Russia has a glimmer of hope that it will be able to use this “unanimous decision vulnerability” to slow down the process of including Ukraine in NATO…
But it has not yet been considered. Neither Ukraine, represented by Zelensky and the Office of the President (a categorical rejection of any form of territorial bargaining), nor the United States (represented by the Biden administration), nor the UK (represented by a complete consensus on the continuation of the war).
In addition, the United States is developing a model of support for Ukraine (for now) until the presidential elections in 2024. And even then – before the elections – the Democrats will want to freeze the war at least during the peak of the political race. And in this case, any outcome will be designated by the democrats as a victory, since Putin’s goal – the destruction of Ukrainian statehood – was not achieved, and the United States was able to achieve the consolidation of NATO, its expansion (Sweden, Finland, Ukraine (?)).
3) Vereshchuk says what I carefully hinted at a couple of posts ago, as if lightly leaking information that the war may not end not only this year, but even next year – I often “test the ground”, so attentive readers could understand that several similar messages would soon fall.
In general, the model is as follows:
Offensive 2023 – ensuring access to the sea (late autumn).
Offensive 2024 – “maximum push” in all-in (spring offensive with an exit into the summer to finish everything before the 2024 US election).
