Putin’s Targeting of Ukrainian Civilians Intended to Prompt Them to Demand Zelensky’s Ouster and the West to Cave but May have Exactly the Opposite Effect, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 1 -- At the end of 2023, Russian government media stopped talking about targeted attacks on Ukrainian military sites and instead began reporting about mass attacks on civilian targets, a shift that mirrors what is taking place on the ground but that signals Vladimir Putin’s intentions, Vladimir Pastukhov says.

            Bombing Ukrainian cities, the London-based Russian analyst says, has the same goal as attacking Ukrainian military targets; but it also represents an attempt to frighten Ukrainians and lead them to demand the ouster of Volodmyr Zelensky and a suing for peace with Russia (t.me/v_pastukhov/923 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/a-mozhet-v-etom-i-est-czel).

            However, Pastukhov continues, this shift is also a sign to other Russians and to the Wet that “Putin doesn’t need peace at all.” Rather, he is setting the stage for a longer and larger war, one full of new risks for Ukraine and the West and also because his repression at home parallels his aggression abroad the Russian people as well.

            “It’s strange,” the London-based analyst says, that Moscow hasn’t learned anything over the last 18 months of the war. “Ukraine is not Russia,” and consequently, what Putin is doing may “make the task facing Zelensky easier by helping him justify the needs for and inevitability of a long-term war with Russia.”

            It may also backfire as far as the West is concerned because scenes of mass destruction and death in hitherto peaceful Ukrainian cities will serve notice that what Putin is about in Ukraine is something far worse than many in Western capitals have yet been willing to acknowledge.