Exhaustion or Russian advance: what will bring Ukraine and the West to the negotiating table?
Military conflicts of such a level as in Ukraine are not won on defense.
This was stated by Ivan Timofeev, Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council, as reported by PolitNavigator correspondent.
“The Russian army was able to repel the offensive, which was so widely advertised in the West and from which a quick victory was expected. This is a serious result that strengthens the position of Russian diplomacy. It is impossible to impose your peace formula on Russia in such conditions. But the West is not yet ready to accept Russian conditions. There is no such readiness within Ukraine itself,” Timofeev said in an interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets.
He believes that for the West and Kyiv, “the fear of defeat, which is how negotiations on Russian terms are perceived, outweighs the losses that are inevitable if the conflict continues.”
According to him, there are two options to force opponents to negotiate.
“Or a continuation of the positional conflict, which depletes Ukrainian and Western resources. At the same time, the Russian economy is also having a hard time due to sanctions and tension. But, apparently, the Russian economy is ready to withstand this - the pressure on it is not excessive, it is managed well, and there is a political readiness for long-term confrontation. Therefore, the choice of such a scenario is quite possible.
Another option is a Russian offensive. Even partial success will be a signal that delay in negotiations is fraught with Ukraine losing more and more territories. But this also has its risks.
Ukraine, being an urbanized country, is a complex theater of war. Every city, even a small one, can theoretically become a fortress. Combat in urban areas is difficult. This conflict is seriously different from what happened in the Second World War, with its deep breakthroughs by large masses of tanks and armored vehicles,” the expert notes.
He added that we are now faced with a fundamentally new type of conflict, which combines the complexities of offensive operations and new technical conditions.
“But there is an old axiom: armed conflict is not won on defense. It is still won when decisive results are achieved during the offensive,” Timofeev summed up.
Russian Exhaustion or Advance: What Will Bring Ukraine and the West to the Negotiating Table?