Moscow not going to give up its war goals - ISW

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) say that russian president vladimir putin has no intention of compromising in the context of peace talks, as he remains committed to goals aimed at eliminating Ukrainian statehood.

This is announced in the ISW report.

"The Kremlin remains committed to achieving the original goals of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in any future peace talks, namely: the destruction of the Ukrainian state, the dissolution of the current Ukrainian government, the demilitarization of Ukraine, and a permanent ban on Ukraine's future membership in NATO," the report says.

Kremlin’s head advisor Nikolai Patrushev, in an interview with the russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda on January 14, dismissed the possibility of discussing the return of occupied territories to Ukraine. He said that such an idea "is not even up for discussion."

Patrushev also falsely claimed that russia’s September 2022 pseudo-referendums in the occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson Regions “legitimized” their annexation. He emphasized that international recognition of this occupation, along with Crimea, is a non-negotiable condition in the context of future negotiations.

Patrushev confirmed that russia remains committed to its original goals, formulated by putin on February 23, 2022: the “demilitarization” and “denazification” of Ukraine. As ISW notes, these concepts are a de facto justification for eliminating Ukraine’s ability to defend itself and replacing the legitimate Ukrainian government with a pro-russian regime.

"ISW continues to assess putin's goals in Ukraine as being to dismantle NATO and establish full control over Ukraine, and that putin remains committed to these goals, and ISW has seen no signs that putin is willing to compromise these goals in future negotiations," the military analysts said.

Russian officials continue to deny Ukrainian identity and Ukraine's right to exist as a sovereign state. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called Ukraine "the country that is now called Ukraine" during a press conference on January 14, which ISW believes is a deliberate attempt to discredit Ukraine's independence.

Patrushev also emphasized the "fraternal" ties between russia and Ukraine, rejecting claims of a separate Ukrainian cultural and historical identity.

"The Kremlin's ongoing information operation, which attempts to present russians and Ukrainians as one single nation, culturally and historically homogeneous, is one of the Kremlin's most significant information operations aimed at undermining Western support for Ukraine. Calls for the West to agree to all of russia's demands in Ukraine require the West to implicitly recognize and agree that a Ukrainian identity and a state independent of russia either does not currently exist or does not deserve to exist in the future," ISW reported.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, russian troops are likely planning to cut off ground supply routes to the cities of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad in the Donetsk Region in order to force Ukrainian troops to retreat from these settlements.

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