Why Putin increases aerial attacks: Portnikov on Russia’s bold plan to force Ukraine’s capitulation
Portnikov has offered a chilling forecast on the continuation of Russia’s missile terror, warning that the threat could persist throughout the 2020s and into the 2030s.
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Vitaly Portnikov
Russia's summer offensive is unlikely to achieve any significant territorial gains. Realizing this, dictator Vladimir Putin has intensified attacks on civilian infrastructure and populations.
Ukrainian journalist Vitaly Portnikov stated this.
According to his opinion, Putin aims to achieve several objectives through terror against Ukrainian civilians:
First, the destruction of Ukraine's military infrastructure. This is to reduce the Ukrainian defense forces' ability to halt Russian advances in the Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Sumy regions.
Second, terror against the civilian population as such.
According to Portnikov, Putin’s airstrikes are intended to “demonstrate” to Ukrainians that they have no choice but to capitulate and accept the demands of the Russian Federation.
“There’s an absolutely clear plan here. To force Ukrainians, under a series of attacks, to acknowledge that they cannot resist Russia’s idea of withdrawing Ukrainian troops from the territories of those regions declared Russian under the Russian constitution. This refers to the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions. To establish control over new frontiers. To make decisions regarding the creation of buffer zones along the borders of the Russian Federation and the Ukrainian regions it occupies,” the journalist reflects.
He suggests that if Ukraine agrees to this capitulation, after some time, the Russian army could launch a new offensive to seize additional Ukrainian regions following the same scenario.
“Part of a region is occupied, a referendum on annexation to the Russian Federation is held. And under a new series of attacks, Ukrainians are forced to withdraw their troops from those regions,” Portnikov speculates.
According to this scenario, the expert says, within a few years, most of Ukraine’s territory could become part of the Russian Federation, while a puppet state under Moscow’s complete control is established in the remaining part.
In other words, this is about implementing the same blitzkrieg plan of 2022, but stretched out over the 2020s and possibly part of the 2030s. According to Portnikov, terror against Ukrainian civilians remains an integral part of this criminal plan by Putin.
“Therefore, we must understand the logic of this terror and the logic of its consequences. And the interconnectedness of the near-daily attacks on Ukrainian cities with the problems faced by the Russian Armed Forces during their latest offensive on Ukrainian positions, which have not yielded the results expected by Russia’s political and military leadership,” Vitaliy Portnikov concluded.