Failure to quickly dominate Ukraine leads Putin to ‘Plan B’

After Russian forces failed to secure a quick victory over Ukraine, high-ranking US officials saw signs of the Kremlin turning to a new strategy, securing key territorial targets and thus pressuring the Ukrainian government to accept neutrality.

According to a WSJ report, the United States and its allies estimated that President Putin’s initial goals were to occupy Kiev within a few days and to replace the government of Volodymyr Zelensky with a pro-Russian regime.

However, as none of this happened, a senior US official told the WSJ that evidence suggested that strong Ukrainian resistance to Russian forces had prompted Putin to adjust his tactics.

According to a new assessment of Putin’s intentions, shared by senior members of the Biden government, Moscow now intends to force Kyiv to accept Russian claims in the territories of southern and eastern Ukraine, namely the unification of Crimea with the separatist regions. .

Putin will also continue his military pressure by pounding Ukrainian cities, believing that this will push Zelensky to abandon his hopes of joining Western organizations by agreeing to a neutral regime, as well as other Russian demands.

Should Putin’s demands for territoriality and neutrality be rejected, US officials say he is expected to try to maintain the territory already occupied by his forces and continue the war. “Based on our military estimates, it appears to be returning to siege tactics,” a U.S. official told the WSJ.

The evaluation of Mr Putin’s “Plan B”, as one official called it, is accompanied by a number of important reservations. Among other things, it may expand its military objectives if the Russian army begins to show greater success against Ukrainian forces.

The status of the city of Kiev remains an open question, as given the strong Ukrainian resistance it is not clear whether the Russian army can gather enough forces to occupy the Ukrainian capital, US officials told the WSJ.

However, according to the report, the interpretation of Putin’s strategy is not the result of a formal evaluation of information, but the opinion of officials with access to confidential information, who point out that it is not a given that this strategy will work.

“His goal has not changed at all,” said Daniel Fried, a former senior State Department official who served as US ambassador to Poland, explaining that “what has changed is his tactics.”

According to him, “the rapid beheading of the Ukrainian government did not succeed and now it just wants to pound them because they are resisting and therefore must be liquidated. It is Stalinist.”