Putin’s Goal is Not Defeating Ukraine but Inflicting a Humiliating Defeat on the West and Changing the Rules of the Game, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 7 – Any Western leader who believes that he can “settle accounts with Putin by paying him off with pieces of Ukraine is surprisingly naïve,” Vladimir Pastukhov says, “because of Putin, Ukraine is not the goal of this war at all. He doesn’t care about that country but rather seeks to inflict a humiliating defeat on the West” and changing the international order.
    If any Western leader does take part in talks with Putin about Ukraine, the London-based Russian analyst says, then it is already obvious that “this dialogue won’t be about territory” but about something much larger. In this, for Putin, his war in Ukraine is a means rather than an end in itself (echofm.online/programs/pastuhovskie-chetvergi/pastuhovskie-chetvergi-130).
    Any such dialogue, he continues, will instead “be about collective security in the world and the balance of relations” between Russia and the rest of the world. The current rules of the international game give advantages to those countries like the US which are economically and socially strong.
    But those rules are “unfavorable to Russia” because Russia is “an economically and socially weak country, torn apart internally,” Pastukhov continues. But it is “fairly strong militarily, and Putin believes that an excess of military strength can compensate for its lack of economic power.”
    That is what any talks between Russia and the West concerning Ukraine will really be about, and the West needs to be ready for that.