{"id":1501488,"date":"2024-11-10T13:10:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-10T18:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1501488"},"modified":"2024-11-10T13:10:00","modified_gmt":"2024-11-10T18:10:00","slug":"the-clock-is-ticking-for-russia-to-achieve-its-maximum-goals-in-the-ukrainian-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/the-clock-is-ticking-for-russia-to-achieve-its-maximum-goals-in-the-ukrainian-conflict\/1501488\/","title":{"rendered":"The Clock Is Ticking For Russia To Achieve Its Maximum Goals In The Ukrainian Conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Clock Is Ticking For Russia To Achieve Its Maximum Goals In The Ukrainian Conflict<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s reported plan for a Western\/NATO peacekeeping mission in Ukraine places Russia in the dilemma of either preempting this with another large-scale nationwide offensive, targeting those forces after they enter at the risk of sparking World War III, or tacitly accepting this endgame.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/a>\u2019s report that Trump\u2019s peace plan for Ukraine envisages the creation of an 800-mile demilitarized zone that would be patrolled by Europeans adds a lot of urgency to Russia\u2019s nearly 1000-day-long struggle to achieve its maximum goals in this conflict. The potential entrance of conventional Western\/NATO forces into Ukraine as peacekeepers places Russia in the dilemma of accepting\u00a0yet another \u201cred line\u201d being crossed<\/a>\u00a0or risking World War III by targeting them.<\/p>\n

To refresh everyone\u2019s memory since it\u2019s been so long since the special operation started, Russia officially aims to: 1) demilitarize Ukraine; 2) denazify it; and 3) restore its constitutional neutrality, among other supplementary and informal goals.<\/strong> September 2022\u2019s referenda then added the official goal of removing Ukrainian forces from the entirety of the four regions that Russia now claims as its own, including the areas of Kherson and Zaporozhye on the other side of the Dnieper, which will be challenge.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Putin has\u00a0repeatedly refused to reciprocally escalate<\/a>\u00a0in response to egregious Ukrainian provocations like its bombing of the Kremlin, early warning systems, strategic airfields, oil refineries, and residential buildings, et al, all due to him not wanting the conflict to spiral out of control. For as responsible of an approach as this is, the drawback is that it created the perception that he might accept the crossing of even more \u201cred lines\u201d, including conventional Western\/NATO forces in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s aversion to escalation might therefore be exploited by Trump, who was\u00a0reportedly handed a plan<\/a>\u00a0in June advising him to give Ukraine whatever it wants if Russia refuses whatever peace deal he proposes, ergo the high likelihood of a conventional Western\/NATO intervention to decisively freeze the conflict. <\/strong>Trump\u2019s track record of \u201cescalating to de-escalate\u201d with North Korea and Iran suggests that he\u2019d also go through with this plan against Russia, hence why it should take this scenario seriously.<\/p>\n

Provided that Putin lacks the political will to risk an unprecedented escalation by targeting those conventional Western\/NATO forces, and his behavior thus far in response to other provocations suggests that this is indeed the case, then he\u2019ll have to race against the clock to achieve his maximum goals. It\u2019ll still take some time for the US to get key stakeholders like Poland on board, where\u00a069% of the public<\/a>\u00a0is against dispatching troops to Ukraine in any capacity, so this likely won\u2019t happen by mid-January.<\/p>\n

In any case, Russia no longer has a hypothetically indefinite amount of time like before to: 1) demilitarize Ukraine; 2) denazify it; 3) restore its constitutional neutrality; and 4) remove Ukrainian forces from the entirety of the four regions that Russia now claims as its own, including those areas across the Dnieper. Even though the\u00a0military-strategic dynamics<\/a>\u00a0of the conflict favor it, and\u00a0capturing Pokrovsk<\/a>\u00a0could lead to huge gains in Donetsk, it\u2019ll be very difficult to achieve all these goals by the time an intervention occurs.<\/p>\n

To explain in the order that they were mentioned, Ukraine was initially supposed to be demilitarized upon the swift success of the special operation in its early phase, but the UK\u00a0and Poland<\/a>\u00a0(whose role most observers aren\u2019t aware of) convinced Zelensky to rubbish spring 2022\u2019s draft peace treaty.<\/strong> That document would have greatly slashed its military capabilities, but it\u2019s no longer realistic to imagine that he\u2019d agree to this, especially after being given tens of billions of dollars\u2019 worth of NATO arms.<\/p>\n

NATO is also unlikely to agree to ask for them back due to the perception (regardless of its veracity) that Ukraine must be able to \u201cdeter\u201d Russia from supposedly recommencing the conflict after it finally ends. <\/strong>The Taliban\u2019s swift capture of Afghanistan after Biden\u2019s bungled withdrawal from there was viciously lambasted by Trump, who\u2019d go down in history as an even bigger loser if he agreed to \u201cdemilitarize\u201d Ukraine and was then played for a fool by Putin if Russia steamrolls through it sometime later.<\/p>\n

The only viable way in which Russia could implement Ukraine\u2019s demilitarization in today\u2019s context is to control as much of its territory as possible in order to ensure that no threatening weapons are deployed there. The problem though is that Russia is unlikely to obtain military control over all of Ukraine, or even just significant parts of its territory east of the Dnieper in proximity to the internationally recognized border across which Kiev\u2019s shells still regularly fly, by the time of a Western\/NATO intervention.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons why the special operation\u2019s opening phase didn\u2019t result in ending the conflict on Russia\u2019s terms is because the West informed Zelensky about how overextended its military logistics had become and thus encouraged him to exploit that to push it back like he ultimately did.<\/strong>\u00a0Given how cautious of a leader Putin is<\/a>, he\u2019s unlikely to act out of character once more by ordering a repeat of this same risky strategy even if the frontlines collapse and Russia is able to roll into other regions. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another unforeseen challenge that Russia experienced during the special operation\u2019s opening phase was actually holding the broad swaths territory that it nominally controlled. Ukraine\u2019s hidden Javelin and Stinger stockpiles inflicted enough losses behind Russia\u2019s lines to engender the large-scale pullback that coincided with the failure of spring 2022\u2019s peace talks. There\u2019s also the obvious difficulty of swiftly capturing large cities like Kharkov, Sumy, and Zaporozhye, which hasn\u2019t yet happened.<\/p>\n

Moving along to Russia\u2019s second maximum goal of denazifying Ukraine after explaining how tough it\u2019ll be to achieve the first one of militarizing it, this too can\u2019t succeed without a political agreement that\u2019s no longer realistic in today\u2019s context after such a chance slipped away in spring 2022. <\/strong>What Russia has in mind is Ukraine promulgating legislation that aligns with these goals, such as banning the glorification of World War II-era fascists and rescinding restrictions on ethnic Russians\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n

Zelensky has no reason to go along with this anymore like he flirted with doing in early 2022 and Trump\u2019s team doesn\u2019t seem to care all that much about this issue anyhow. It\u2019s therefore unclear how Russia can achieve this before a Western\/NATO intervention except in the unlikely scenario of a Russian-friendly Color Revolution and\/or military coup, neither of which the US would accept, and both of which would probably thus prompt the aforesaid intervention out of desperation to salvage \u201cProject Ukraine\u201d.<\/p>\n

The third maximum goal of restoring Ukraine\u2019s constitutional neutrality is comparatively more likely but nevertheless moot at this point given that the raft of security guarantees that it already clinched with NATO states <\/strong>since the start of this year de facto amount to continued Article 5 support. Contrary to popular perceptions, this clause doesn\u2019t obligate the dispatch of troops, but only for each country to do whatever it deems fit to help allies under attack. Their existing military aid to Ukraine aligns with this.<\/p>\n

Coercing Ukraine to rescind 2019\u2019s constitutional amendment making NATO membership a strategic objective would therefore be a superficial concession to Russia on the US\u2019 part to make Trump\u2019s peace plan a little less bitter for Putin to swallow. As with the previous two maximum goals, Zelensky has no reason to comply with Putin\u2019s demands in this regard since the latter\u2019s forces aren\u2019t in a position to impose this upon him, thus meaning that it can only realistically be done if Trump orders him to.<\/p>\n

As the reader probably already picked up on, the common theme is that Russia\u2019s inability to militarily coerce Zelensky into complying with its maximum goals greatly reduces the possibility that they\u2019ll be achieved, which also holds true for the final one of obtaining control over all its new regions\u2019 land. It\u2019s unimaginable that Zelensky will voluntarily cede Zaporozhye with its over 700,000 population, for example, or that Trump will accept the Western opprobrium that would follow coercing him to do so.<\/p>\n

The same goes for letting Russia cross the Dnieper to obtain control over that region\u2019s and Kherson\u2019s areas on the other side, thus creating the opportunity for it to build up its forces there in the future for a lightning strike across Ukraine\u2019s western plains in the event that the conflict ever rekindles after it ends. <\/strong>There\u2019s no way that Trump would ever give Putin such an invaluable military-strategic gift so Russia\u2019s supporters shouldn\u2019t deceive themselves by getting their hopes up thinking that this will happen.<\/p>\n

The only way in which Russia can achieve its maximum goals before the entrance of Western\/NATO troops into Ukraine as peacekeepers is through military means, which would require another large-scale multi-pronged offensive of the sort that characterized the special operation\u2019s early days. Even then, however, the high risk of once again overextending its military logistics, being ambushed by Stingers\/Javelins, and thus risking reputational costs and even on-the-ground losses, will remain.<\/p>\n

As such, there are really only three options left for Russia:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1) escalate now before Western\/NATO troops enter Ukraine and either coerce Zelensky into agreeing to these demands or capture and hold enough land in order to demilitarize as much of the country as possible; <\/em><\/p>\n

2) escalate after they enter at the risk of sparking a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis that could spiral into World War III; or <\/em><\/p>\n

3) accept the fait accompli of freezing the conflict along the Line of Contact and begin preparing the public accordingly.<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s unclear which option Putin will choose since he hasn\u2019t yet signaled a preference for any of them.<\/strong> Nevertheless, it\u2019s timely to quote 19th-century Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov, who famously said that \u201cRussia is not sulking; she is composing herself<\/a>.\u201d Russia knows that the clock is ticking for achieving its maximum goals before Trump likely orders Western\/NATO peacekeepers to enter Ukraine. The Kremlin is quiet for now precisely because policymakers have yet to decide what to do.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSun, 11\/10\/2024 – 08:10<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/clock-ticking-russia-achieve-its-maximum-goals-ukrainian-conflict<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Clock Is Ticking For Russia To Achieve Its Maximum Goals In The Ukrainian Conflict Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack, Trump\u2019s reported plan for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1501489,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1501488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1501488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1501489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1501488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1501488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1501488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}