Russia is changing its military strategy in the Ukraine war: what is behind Putin's new plan?

Created: 03/28/2022, 19:39

By: Andreas Schmid

According to Russia, it has changed its strategy in the Ukraine war.

What does that mean?

© -/Russian Presidential Press Service/AP/dpa

In the Ukraine war, Russia now wants to focus primarily on “liberation in the Donbass”.

How are the new words from Moscow to be classified?

Moscow - After more than 30 days of war in Ukraine, Russia seems to have changed its military strategy.

At least that's what the Kremlin is propagating.

Moscow said on Friday (March 25) that the army would in future concentrate on the "liberation" of the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine.

What's behind it?

And how is this supposedly new course to be classified?

The most important answers at a glance.

Ukraine war: Why is Russia changing its strategy?

The Ukraine conflict took its course in the Donbass border region.

There has been fighting in Donbass since 2014.

The region is important to Russia, where Moscow-backed separatists are fighting Ukrainian government troops.

As Russian Deputy Chief of Staff Sergei Rudskoy said in a long speech, the focus of the war has always been on the Donbass.

However, all of Ukraine was attacked to "damage the military infrastructure, equipment and personnel of the Ukrainian armed forces so that they have no opportunity to reinforce their troops in Donbass until the Russian army fully liberates the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics .” That liberation was the “main goal” of the war.

Weapons would also be supplied to the separatist areas.

"Units of the Russian Armed Forces, together with the People's Militia of the Donetsk People's Republic, are conducting an offensive to liberate settlements west of Donetsk."

Ukraine war: Is Russia withdrawing from the west of the country?

The Donbass border region is located in eastern Ukraine, near Russia.

Far away from the east, Ukraine has recently reported successes, for example in the capital Kyiv or in Kharkiv, which was badly affected by the war.

A direct invasion of Kyiv, as feared during the course of the war, does not currently appear to be an imminent scenario.

However, the new strategy probably does not mean a withdrawal of Russian troops.

This is shown by current attacks throughout Ukraine.

In fact, the Russian attacks over the weekend were also directed against targets in the center and west of the country.

In Lviv, not far from the Polish border, a fuel depot was attacked, among other things.

In northern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian sources, the Russian army took control of the small town of Slavutych, where the personnel at the Chernobyl nuclear ruins lived.

In other words, the war is still taking place almost all over the country.

Russia's ex-president Dmitry Medvedev threatened to use nuclear weapons.

Fire rises from a fuel depot in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv (also known as Lemberg) after Russian rocket hits.

© Cover Images/Imago

Ukraine war: how does Ukraine feel about the new Russia course?

The Ukraine reacted with some surprise at the new tones from Moscow - and of course interpreted them from their point of view.

According to the head of Ukraine's military intelligence service, Kyrylo Budanov, Russia's "failed attempt to take Kyiv and overthrow the Ukrainian government".

What is Russia planning now?

Putin is changing the strategy - and would now want to create a division of Ukraine like in Korea.

"There are reasons to believe that he wants to create a dividing line between the occupied and unoccupied territories of our country - an attempt to create South and North Korea in Ukraine," the military intelligence chief said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine war: how to classify the new course?

There are doubts as to how seriously the Russian words should be taken.

US President Joe Biden is "not sure" the Russians have changed their strategy in Ukraine, he said over the weekend.

So far, Russia has two major cities under control.

Kherson and Mariupol.

Beyond that, however, aggressive war seemed to stagnate.

The advance of Russian troops faltered.

With the newly proclaimed goal, the Kremlin could keep an argument open.

Specifically: If the Ukrainian resistance is too great, Russia can now withdraw more easily.

Then the Kremlin could propagate that the only goal was the Donbass anyway.

They did not want to capture additional Ukrainian cities or conquer Kyiv.

Then Putin would probably come out of a possible withdrawal a little more unscathed.

Ukraine War: New Russia Strategy Just a Rhetorical Maneuver?

At the same time, Rudskoy left some options open in his speech.

The aim is still to denazify Ukraine, said the deputy chief of staff.

He spoke of a "special military operation to liberate Ukraine from National Socialism." This means, in turn, that Russia still sees legitimacy in attacking Ukraine militarily, even far from the Donbass.

In addition, Russia also uses that speech for propaganda purposes.

So the war is going strictly according to plan.

They wanted to liberate Ukraine, it was "impossible to achieve that with political measures." That's why the invasion, which Russia calls "special operations", began on February 24.

"The course of the operation confirmed the correctness of this decision".

(You can read the speech in English here).

In addition, Russia was planning another genocide against Ukraine - a not new argument in the repertoire of Russian war propaganda.

Rudskoy also used his speech to enumerate Russia's wartime successes.

Interesting: He put his own losses at 1,351.

Ukraine, on the other hand, speaks of 16,000 Russian soldiers killed.

NATO assumes 7,000 to 15,000 dead.

According to the Kremlin, 14,000 soldiers were killed on the Ukrainian side.

Ukraine itself last spoke of around 1,300 soldiers killed in its own ranks on March 12.

The figures are not verifiable.

Ukraine war: will the new strategy change the negotiations?

So far, the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia have primarily involved Ukraine renouncing NATO membership and security guarantees.

There have already been several rounds of negotiations - but a breakthrough including the end of the war has not yet been achieved.

The Russian chief negotiator Medinski said on Friday that the negotiations were not progressing on the key issues.

“The positions agree on secondary points.

But we are not making any progress on the main political issues.” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba said: “The negotiation process is very difficult.”

Recently, agreement seemed to be getting closer.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had assured that Russia and Ukraine apparently agreed on four out of six negotiation points: Ukraine's waiver of NATO membership, the use of the Russian language in Ukraine, disarmament and security guarantees.

Kuleba now emphasized: "There is no consensus with Russia on the four points."

The now presumed Donbass focus could bring movement to the negotiations.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently declared that a victory for Ukraine would be if Russian troops “withdraw” to the pro-Russian separatist-controlled areas in the east.

"From there we will try to solve the Donbass issue," said Zelenskyy, who stressed: "We understand that it is impossible to completely liberate the area." Retaking the areas would trigger "World War III."