Russia will use truce with restrictions on supply of weapons to Ukraine to prepare for new aggression – ISW

Any potential future agreement by russia to freeze the front until russia fully controls the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson Regions does not exclude future russian aggression to achieve russia's broader territorial demands. Especially if the agreement includes a moratorium on Ukraine receiving Western military assistance.

This is reported by the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Thus, a russian diplomat said in an interview with the Moscow Times that "the situation on the ground will dictate the next steps" in US-russian talks on the war, and that "it all depends on time, patience and staying the course."

Meanwhile, the current front line does not provide the strategic depth Ukraine needs to reliably defend itself against renewed russian aggression, as russian troops are located on the other bank of the Dnieper River from Kherson, approximately 25 kilometers from Zaporizhzhia and 20 kilometers from Kharkiv.

In addition, russia has noticeably increased the use of armored vehicles along the entire front line and appears to have intensified what is likely a multi-year effort to seize Ukraine’s “belt of fortresses” in the Donetsk Region—perhaps as part of an effort to seize as much territory as possible in the east and south of Ukraine, including the four regions russia has formally claimed.

“Russia may tactically and temporarily stop insisting on Putin’s demands for Ukrainian-controlled territories in the four illegally annexed regions in southern and eastern Ukraine in order to obtain other concessions from the United States during the negotiations,” the analysts noted.

It is indicated that such concessions could include "other demands" from russia regarding the establishment of a pro-russian government in Kyiv and a sharp reduction in the Ukrainian army in order to reduce resistance to renewed russian aggression.

"The Kremlin will most likely take advantage of any truce based on limiting the supply of American weapons to Ukraine to prepare for new aggression," the ISW summarized.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, the press secretary of the russian dictator Dmitry Peskov said that information from Western media that the aggressor country russia is ready to stop fighting on the current front line is not true.

Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine does not intend to recognize the occupation of Crimea. He also said that US representatives have indeed discussed such ideas.

Recall, on Tuesday, April 22, the British newspaper Financial Times wrote, citing its own sources, that putin is allegedly ready to abandon the complete seizure of the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson Regions if the US recognizes Crimea as russian and blocks Ukraine's membership in NATO.

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