The fact that Putin presents his war in Ukraine as Russia’s fight against the West, not Ukraine, shows that he has no intention of negotiating in good faith with Ukraine and is setting information conditions to convince the West to betray Ukraine. and negotiate with Moscow, says the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Putin is deliberately and falsely portraying Ukraine as a passive pawn in the conflict between Russia and the West to mask his expansionist and maximalist goals of establishing full and effective Russian control over Ukraine, ISW notes in its latest assessment of the war.

How Putin is trying to convince the West to betray Ukraine

Putin’s speech at the January 1 talks talks about his intention to negotiate only with the West about the future of Ukraine in the zone of Russian influence and only about the West’s rejection of Ukraine.

However, this does not mean that Putin will be interested in negotiations with Ukraine as an autonomous player.

Putin followed a similar line when he issued two ultimatums to the US and NATO in December 2021 aimed at forcing the West to recognize Russia’s sphere of influence in Eastern Europe by giving up key elements of Ukraine’s sovereignty in the name of de-escalation. the conflict between the West and Russia, which Putin has exacerbated.

Any commitment by the West to bypass Ukraine in negotiations on Ukraine’s future would signal to Russia that it can impose its will on countries it considers its sphere of influence – even countries outside Ukraine, potentially including Finland and the Republic of Moldova. , about which various Russian actors began to establish information conditions for future campaigns.

Ideological justification of huge losses at the front

ISW analysts explain that Putin may be expanding his military goals in Ukraine, including a confrontation with the West, to create the basis for a steady build-up of the Russian military and to justify heavy casualties on the battlefield.

“In 2023, Russia has made almost no significant progress with heavy losses of military personnel, despite Putin’s absurd statements on January 1 that he is ordering the Russian military only to launch an offensive that does not cause significant casualties,” the quoted source said.

At the end of last year, the British Ministry of Defense reported that the average daily number of Russian casualties in Ukraine increased by almost 300 during 2023, and by the end of 2024 the number of Russian casualties could rise to more than half a million.

A declassified US intelligence estimate presented to Congress on December 12 indicated that Russian forces have lost 315,000 lives since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Such high losses for small territorial gains are likely to prompt Putin to find a strong ideological justification for continuing the protracted war that Russia has chosen to wage.

The war is existential for Ukraine, not for Russia

Ukraine does not need such twisted justifications for the heavy casualties and suffering that Putin’s invasion is causing its people, even when Ukraine’s military operations are not producing the desired results, ISW notes:

The war is indeed existential for Ukraine, but not for Russia.

It is noteworthy that Putin ended his remarks about the conflict between Russia and the West by telling a soldier in the hospital that he was not hurt, so that Russia would drop everything and surrender.

Putin has also addressed several domestic issues of housing shortages and compensation for soldiers wounded on the battlefield in an effort to position himself as a sympathetic and engaged wartime leader, although he appears to be upping the ante to support his claims of ever-increasing casualties. from his people.

Putin’s statements likely suggest he is preparing a long-term justification to keep forces mobilized and engaged in combat to permanently defend Russian sovereignty against the West, added an analysis published by the Institute for the Study of War.