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(F): Do you see what impression is emerging? The impression is that, and we’ll move on to more global themes such as statements of European politicians, the initiatives by Italians, Berlusconi… But the impression is that the RF MoD is trying extremely hard, ahead of the possible switch to a positional warfare and, further, change to defending, to capture as quickly as possible this piece of land from Popasna to Belogorovka or Lyman, possibly to Sloviansk, Bahmut… to capture this plot, flatten this line at the administrative border of Luhansk Oblast, and then send in Berlusconi, saying ‘What are you doing, it’s time for an agreement!’ and so on. Do you have an impression that an attempt to capture this piece of land is a way for them change to defence?
(A): We spoke about this before but now we can say more. Russian authorities are conducting an operation on a strategic scale - it consists of political, military and informational parts, which are rather equal. The military part is to reach borders of Luhansk Oblast, ideally with an encirclement of UAF, a ‘cauldron’ - another ‘victory’ similar to Mariupol, to capture and release prisoners of war, or the opposite - brutally finish them, or both … Considering the number of their losses in this war, they need this victory. Next, they have sent into Europe emissaries and are now using all the agents they have, working very closely on their 'Italian plan’. Their main premise is to push the agenda along the lines of ‘Of course, this is a protracted war, Putin won’t let it go so easily, and to avoid further victims and the provisional crisis, let’s’…
(F): It says directly *in the plan* - 'Let's convince Kyiv to agree for territorial concessions' to avoid all of this.
(A): Yes. Kyiv authorities reacted to all of this, the President gave a special interview to announce his political position - 'Get out at least until the borders on the 23rd February, and then we may speak, but if negotiations fail then we will take back Crimea and Donbas with military means, although this will lead to many victims among Ukrainians' … When it comes to the Russian army, it realises one unpleasant thing - in 1 - 1,5 months the Ukrainian army will reach peak of its capabilities thanks to Western weapon supplies … As I understand the Russian authorities, on the advice of the military command made an evaluation that they are not so sure the Russian army will manage to finish mobilisation (again) and reach their peak by the time Ukraine is ready. So their objective is to delay rearmament of the Ukrainian army as much as possible, which requires a very concrete thesis - that the war must be stopped, and one of the best ways to stop it is to stop militarising UAF. Their goal is to slow down rearmament of UAF. *Germans* seem to have issues with bilateral supplies since even though EU approved 2 billion Euros, on the bilateral side the poor 7 howitzers are taking 3 months to be transferred. Americans brought 90 in a week. So their *Russian* efforts obviously have a partial success. The 3rd part is informational - it emphasises a very clear line - ‘We are not fighting Ukraine’, as Russian propagandists say, ‘We are fighting with West’, or rather a 'coalition of 42 states that the fascists have set up against us'. And they are preparing the Russian society for modest results of this war - for example capture of Mariupol and reaching borders of DPR and LPR, to sell it as a victory … There is obvious promotion through words, evaluations of the situation, through presentation of material, obvious promotion of inequality of two sides … What does all of this give us in total? What is the sum of the military, informational and political objectives of Russia? They will say - ‘Special operation reached its goals, we defended people of Luhansk and Donetsk whom we recognised before the war, cleared their borders, which they can now defend and start building a peaceful life with Russia. And regarding the terrible behaviour of Ukraine, we started negotiations with the West, the negotiations are difficult but successful, and we will now decide the problem of a world food crisis, security of the Black Sea and so on. Look how nice we are, the only one stubborn is the fascist Ukrainian regime’. So they are twisting it, making it a situation where it's 'us and the West trying to persuade the insane nazi Ukraine' - which they have been doing previously *for 8 year*… It’s different than before in that we are in a union with Britain and US, giving us a more decisive position as they have more decisive goals.
(F): Yes, they announce their goals in public, they cannot reach these goals if you go for concessions of the ‘Italian plan’.
(A): Yes, though they also started having ‘agreeing notes’…
(F): The Americans?
(A): Yes. First of all, the calls have started, the dialogue emerged.
(F): You mean Gerasimov and Millie?
(A): Yes, yes. And the NYT article which says the Ukrainian government must be sober and that recapturing its territory is not very real. This reflects the internal discussion within the US. It creates additional opportunities for a dialogue with Russia, since if they started speaking then sensible people will always support that. Eventually the sides will meet and they better have something to talk about.