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Does Putin have an early exit to end the war? This is what the experts say

2022-03-09T14:04:39.719Z


The Russian president will seek total control of Ukraine and the occupation may last for years, as the invasion has met with more Ukrainian resistance than the Kremlin expected.


By Phil McCauslandNBC

News

Ukraine resists.

It may come as a surprise to Russia as its invasion heads into a destructive third week.

Not only does he appear to have underestimated her neighbor's determination, but now his ability to wage—let alone win—a protracted conflict has been called into question.

Between tougher-than-expected Ukrainian resistance, Russia's early military troubles, and expansive sanctions that have rocked Moscow's economy, could President Vladimir Putin seek an early exit to end the war?

[USA.

prohibits the import of oil in its latest sanction to Russia.

Two million have already fled Ukraine]

Ukrainian officials and Russia experts are not very optimistic about this scenario.

“There may be more going on than meets the eye, but the Kremlin has staked everything on this invasion, a major war that Russia has not fought since 1945,” said Michael Kimmage, who joined the State Department in 2014 to focus on issues. Ukraine and Russia and is now chair of the history department at The Catholic University of America.

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"Putin has staked his presidency on this enterprise, so either he gets big concessions from the Ukrainians or he just keeps fighting," Kimmage added.

According to experts, Putin entered the conflict with very clear political objectives: to push back NATO, overthrow the Ukrainian government and install a new regime more akin to the Kremlin.

To do this, Russia hoped to achieve a quick military victory before the West could react.

Now that it has turned into a protracted fight, Moscow appears to be readjusting its efforts: the swift ground offensive is turning into a devastating air assault.

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"Now it's an air war," said Oleksandr Danylyuk, the former secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council who is helping organize territorial defense on the Kiev front.

“If they wanted to take over Ukraine, now they know they are not going to be able to do it,” he added by phone.

“When I see their behavior, they don't care at all.

They cannot occupy this country, so now they will try to destroy it."

However, as the war has rapidly changed, so have some of Moscow's public demands.

On Monday, Russia provided Ukraine with a scaled-down version of the goals it had previously outlined, though experts doubt there will be much room for manoeuvre.

Instead of demanding the full demilitarization of Ukraine and pressuring NATO to withdraw all deployments east of where the alliance was in 1997, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Reuters news agency that war could end “in a moment” if Kiev agreed to four conditions.

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Ukraine would have to end all military actions, write into its constitution that it would not join NATO or the European Union, officially recognize the annexation of Crimea as Russian territory, and accept the independence of two breakaway eastern regions.

“These goals that Putin has put forward are what are perhaps the lowest common denominator of what they would agree on,” said Mathieu Boulegue, a Eurasian defense and security specialist at London-based Chatham House research institute.

A woman walks past an anti-Putin and anti-war poster plastered on a building in downtown Warsaw, Poland, on March 8, 2022.Attila Husejnow/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

"All of this has been out there for a long time, but this is the first time we've seen it on paper," Boulegue recalled.

“The question is where do we go from here?

How can they turn what they are doing now into a military victory that reassures and guarantees the ability to move forward with their strategic political ambitions?

Russian forces are not occupying much territory in Ukraine, but are apparently focused on surrounding or razing towns.

The towns of Kherson, Mariupol, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv have been heavily shelled, and the destruction is only increasing as the war continues.

So far it seems to have served only to embolden the Ukrainian resistance, rather than convince it to surrender.

"This could go on for a while"

Although Russia's demands are high, so is Ukraine's determination to oppose them and any agreement that does not allow Russia to leave the country totally independent and free to make its own decisions.

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"We make sacrifices every day," Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, a member of Ukraine's parliament, said by phone when asked if his country would agree to any of Russia's demands.

“Thousands of our people are injured.

Hundreds of our inhabitants have died.

We don't have the ability to stand aside and be neutral,” he stated.

"Ukraine is now the frontier of democracy, of Western values," he added.

NBC News, sister network of Noticias Telemundo, has not verified the death toll.

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According to experts, Ukraine's acceptance of Russian terms could further embolden the Putin regime and provoke further backlash for democracies and sovereign nations around the world, as neighboring countries already fear being the next target of Russian aggression.

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The West itself should "make sure that [Ukraine] does not sacrifice anything," Boulegue said.

A State Department spokesman said the United States would not pressure Ukraine to make concessions to end the conflict and that "we have consistently said that sovereign nations have the right to choose their own alliances and make their own decisions about their own security."

“The challenge is this.

Putin continues to press with this aggression, and that is why we are concerned that it may last for some time," the spokesman said.

How much time Russia can afford, between its military and economic resources, is unclear.

But it is a certainty that the country is assuming an enormous cost to engage in the conflict.

Every day the number of young Russians who will never return home increases, with the US putting the total at between 2,000 and 4,000 Russian soldiers killed so far, possibly more than the number of Americans killed in the 20-year war in Afghanistan.

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As the cost mounts for the Kremlin, can it sustain a long-term fight against the Ukrainian resistance?

"For Putin, I think it's very difficult to walk away with nothing - from the perspective of regime survival - otherwise he would be admitting defeat," said Dmitry Gorenburg, a research scientist who studies Russian politics and its military at the CNA military research institute.

“My suspicion and my fear is that what we will see is the use of more indiscriminate violence so that the Ukrainians decide that the losses are not worth it.”

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It could also be difficult for Ukraine and Russia to reach an agreement because there is little or no trust between the two sides, especially if Putin is involved, according to Ukrainian officials.


The latest round of negotiations made little headway, and efforts to evacuate civilians from besieged cities have been repeatedly marred by relentless Russian attacks.

Danylyuk on Monday helped evacuate women and children through the occupied territory north of Kiev and said they constantly saw heavy shelling.

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"Putin's intentions are absolutely clear," Danylyuk said.

“If we give him a finger, he will bite our whole hand.

There can only be one negotiation: that they withdraw from Ukraine and pay us reparations.

That's it,” he stated.

All of these elements have combined to create a conflict from which neither side seems ready to back down, though both may feel stuck between a rock and a hard place with no way out.

"At this point, diplomacy is doomed to fail," Boulegue said.

“I don't see a way out.

It will be a war of attrition, a very long conflict that will leave Ukraine and European security scarred for decades,” Boulegue lamented.

Source: telemundo

All news articles on 2022-03-09

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