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Putin is expanding Russia's war aims – behind this there is a calculation to gain control over Ukraine, but also to justify a protracted war.
Moscow – Russian President Vladimir Putin apparently has new plans: he wants to expand the war against Ukraine in order to defeat the real “enemy”, the West. According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), experts have recently noticed a change in Putin's rhetoric. The Kremlin leader increasingly sells the war in Ukraine as a fight against the West, reports the Kyiv Post.
Only at a meeting in a military hospital in the Moscow region on Monday (January 1) did Putin say: “Ukraine itself is not an enemy. Western actors who want to destroy the Russian state and achieve Russia's strategic defeat on the battlefield are Russia's enemies,” reports ISW.
Unplanned negotiations with Ukraine
The Russian president's narrative, which portrays the war in Ukraine as a Russian struggle against the West, suggests that he has no intention of truly negotiating with Ukraine. The US Investigative Organization (ISW) continues to interpret Putin's behavior as a sign that he wants to negotiate exclusively with Western nations in order to put pressure on them and distance them from Ukraine in the long term. According to experts, the Russian president sees the war in Ukraine as a fight against the West and not against Ukraine itself. The objective is, therefore, to convince the West, through negotiations, to recognize Russian sovereignty in Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, sees the West as the real enemy. © Sergei Guneyev/dpa
Biggest wave of attacks since the start of the war: Putin does not think about the end of the war
The war between Ukraine and Russia, which has been going on for two years, is mainly accompanied by heavy losses on both sides. According to the German Press Agency, Russia has made only minimal territorial gains in 2023, with significant personnel costs. Putin therefore urgently needs an ideological justification to continue the current war.
The massive Russian attacks on Ukraine around the turn of the year also show that Putin is not thinking about ending the war of aggression against his neighboring country. After Christmas, Russia launched one of the biggest waves of attacks since the start of the war against the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, and other cities. According to the international news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP), more than 40 people were killed. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Russian military has fired nearly 300 missiles and more than 200 drones at Ukraine since December 29 alone.
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Confrontation with the West Provides Better Justification for War for Russia
But there is more behind the sudden expansion of war aims and the assertion that in the Ukraine war it is not Ukraine that is the enemy, but the West. According to ISW, a war against Western powers would require many more resources than a war against Ukraine. And this much larger, more difficult and time-consuming war objective creates the justification for a permanent military build-up in Russia. Putin can also better sell the Russian side's many deaths and high government spending to its people.
In short, experts agree: there is no real desire in Moscow to negotiate with Ukraine. Political scientists warn Western states not to negotiate with Moscow without Kiev's participation. This could send a signal to Putin that he can expand his power to other countries in the region. Analysts include, for example, Moldova and Finland.
The ISW analysis also draws parallels with Putin's previous actions, in which he attempted to force the West to recognize Russia's sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, sacrificing parts of Ukraine's sovereignty. Whether Putin's plan to justify his country's high losses from the war against the West will work will be seen in the next elections in Russia in March this year. (Babet Gumbrecht)