Russia launched the largest air attack on Ukraine since the beginning of the war yesterday. According to analysts from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), this is not a coincidence, but part of a malicious plan by Vladimir Putin to convince Western countries that Ukraine will lose.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin is using air strikes on Ukrainian cities and aggressive rhetorical campaigns to undermine Ukrainian morale and convince the West that Russian victory in Ukraine is inevitable and support for Ukraine is useless.
Russia is using large-scale attacks in Ukraine to cover up its failures on the front, the ISW said. Putin remains deeply committed to distracting from the realities of the battlefield, as cutting off Western military aid to Ukraine is Russia’s only real hope of winning this war.
Russian progress on the front has slowed significantly. Putin seems to believe that massive strikes on Ukrainian cities and aggressive Russian rhetoric against NATO and Eastern European countries will sufficiently distract from Russia’s slow and exhausting advance in eastern Ukraine. Putin wants to create a sense of hopelessness in Ukraine and the West and dissuade European capitals and the United States from further aid to Ukraine by falsely portraying Russian victory as inevitable.
At the same time, Russian authorities are trying to hide Russia’s worsening economic and material constraints that are preventing it from achieving significant success on the battlefield, analysts note. Russia’s defense industrial base cannot produce armored vehicles and artillery systems at a rate that would compensate for Russia’s current losses.
The Kremlin may be overestimating its ability to sustain long-term military operations and appears to be shifting its priorities in its efforts to persuade the West to give in to Russian demands.
367 Russian drones and missiles were fired into Ukraine on Sunday. At least 12 people were killed and dozens were wounded. It was the deadliest airstrike since the start of the full-scale war. Ukrainian President Zelensky accused Russia of terrorism and called on the West to put more pressure on Moscow, including through sanctions.
Against this backdrop, Donald Trump had unusually harsh words for Putin. The US president has made it clear that he is losing patience with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, issuing one of his sharpest criticisms of him after Russia continued to bombard Kiev and other Ukrainian cities with drones and missiles for a third consecutive night, the AP reported. “I have always had a very good relationship with Russian (President) Vladimir Putin, but something has happened to him. He has gone completely INSANE,“ Trump wrote on social media.