JRL NEWSWATCH: “Why Putin Will Never Agree to De-escalate; Regardless of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, Russia is bracing for a long war” – Foreign Policy
“As Ukraine accelerates its counteroffensive a… a rational person might conclude … 2023 must surely be the last year of Russia’s war against its neighbor. Russian military resources are depleted, Moscow’s long and bloody winter offensive in the Donbas has yielded meager results, and Russian society longs for the return of prewar stability. Logic dictates … the Kremlin has no better option than to seize any opportunity to cut short its disastrous war, saving face as far as possible by clinging to the shreds of its territorial gains. … Russian elites … [privately] reveal major discontent with the mounting costs … and no understanding of [the war’s] purpose. Still, the invasion goes on according to Putin’s wishes, and no one in Russia has the means to override his will. For Putin, the invasion presents an easy way to implement the goals he … struggled for years to realize in peacetime. This has always been Putin’s trademark style of ruling: He believes that direct attempts to steer the leviathan of the Russian state are futile, and instead prefers to force the system to adapt to crises and faits accomplis he himself created. …”
Click here for: “Why Putin Will Never Agree to De-escalate; Regardless of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, Russia is bracing for a long war” – Foreign Policy/ Maxim Samorukov