Igor Zaytsev's blog

The Lavrov’s interview about the “new” realities of the war and how HIMARS etc. is affecting those realities is pure nonsense.

“The President was very clear, as you quoted: denazification and demilitarization in the sense that there should be no threat to our security, no military threat from Ukraine’s territory, and this objective remains,” Lavrov said.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/20/europe/russia-ukraine-military-objective-east-donbas-intl/index.html

The President was super unclear, actually. If we are talking about the geography of the conflict, that is. “Denazification” and “demilitarization” of Ukraine, if that is really Kremlin objective, cannot be done without either:

1. Full control of the Ukrainian territories, or
2. Ukrainian capitulation, following legislation forbidding any neo-Nazi and Bandera ideology, prosecution of the past crimes of regime-supported Nazis, and disbandment of armed forces and elimination of any heavy military equipment.

Since the 2nd option isn’t realistic without some kind of a coup, which seems highly unlikely, given the influence neo-Nazis and Russophobic Western governments hold in Ukraine, only the first option remains.

Which means all the territory of Ukraine needs to be captured and brought under Russian military, FSB and state prosecution control. Any attempts to freeze the conflict at some arbitrary line with a cease-fire treaty will be a return to a failure of Minsk agreements.

Kremlin must understand this — public opinion is very clear on that point. The mandate Russians gave Putin to wage a war in Ukraine is to bring back a full victory, and destroy all the seeds of neo-Nazism which felt on a fertile ground after the Western-initiated regime change. And the only reason to make statements of ending the war earlier than this is either a diplomatic trickery or a genuine attempt to find some compromise with the West.

If its the first one, then we have yet again the situation there the government hold the people as someone who should be held in the dark. If the second option is true, than they obviously still don’t understand that the only way to ensure Russian future is to defeat the West militarily, diplomatically and economically. Only then the West will be forced to recognize Russia as an equal to themselves. If Russia is continued to be viewed as some defiant but third-rate power, attacks on it will also continue, draining it and preventing it from realizing its potential.

“We cannot allow any weapons in the part of Ukraine controlled by Zelensky or whoever will replace him that pose a direct threat to our territory or the territory of the republics that declared independence or those that wish to determine their future independently,” Lavrov said.

Lavrov here throws any logic out of the window. Any territory held by Russia will have no choice but to declare independence from Ukraine and to be recognized by the Russian Federation, or, alternatively, to join the Russian Federation. So at any point, and no matter how much territory Russia will control, some part of Russia or Russian-recognized state(s) will be under the threat of any and all weapons Ukraine posses.

Unless, of course, Russia is willing to military hold territories that will remain under Ukrainian administrative control. And I don’t see any way that can happen in reality, since Ukrainian administration is blatantly anti-Russian. But even if that would be possible, any new weapon Ukraine acquires that has a longer than already existing range, would, by Lavrov’s logic, compel Russia to conquer new territories. Each and every time it happens. And since Ukraine still have some of its combat aviation left, this “security zone” (of some kind) would have to extend for many hundreds of kilometers anyway. And if this nonsense still not nonsensical enough, than we should remember that Belarus is a militarily-allied state to Russia, and any threat to Belarus is equal to threat to Russia. So this “security zone” will run not only along the Russian and, let’s say “Novorossia” territories, but also along Belarus borders with Ukraine. That is why Lavrov’s words make no sense what-so-ever.

So either Lavrov is trolling his own population (as well as the rest of the world), and doesn’t mean the word he says, or he just don’t have any clear idea regarding the final goals of this conflict. I can somewhat see the first option being possible, but it seems to me much more probable Kremlin is just making thing on the go. So then Putin talked about “denazification” and “demilitarization” of Ukraine, he either spoke in anger, not having any concrete plan for this war, or he had a vision in mind, but lost some of his determination to see it through in the meantime.

The Russian victory in Ukraine is obvious, and was obvious from the start. So it is understandable Putin was confident in Russian military abilities to defeat Ukraine. But, Russia did suffered some major military failures in this conflict: the initial Russian nonchalant advances with very heavy and totally unnecessary loses in personnel, the sinking of the “Moskva”, the totally inadequate drone capabilities, etc., etc. If a leader sees all those things and knows that Ukraine is nowhere close to the capabilities of the combined NATO military while Russia is using its best available troops, than it’s only natural his spirit would fall, and he’ll start to search for exit strategies. At least this is my take from those progressively nonsensical comments of the Russian officials regarding the goals and limits of the Russian “Special military operation” in Ukraine.