Putin’s sinister game plan is to ‘rot and degrade’ his way to victory | UK News

Vladimir Putin is attempting to break the West’s resolve as he knows he cannot win a ‘shooting war’ if Ukraine’s allies stand united, according to an analyst at a leading research institute.

George Barros, of the respected US Institute for the Study of War, said that ‘information operations’ are being used by the Russian president to sow division among Kyiv’s allies.  

The Russia team lead warned that the war is at a ‘pivotal and fraught’ moment as Moscow attempts to turn the tide on the battlefield and US politicians wrangle over a multi-billion dollar arms package to Ukraine.

Any acceptance of step-changes in Russian aggression could see Putin taking his ‘wars of conquest’ further west, he told Metro.co.uk. 

Joe Biden’s $61.4 billion aid package for Ukraine is stalled at Congress, while piecemeal arms supplies from other allied nations are also waning.

‘In the decision-making space, we are in a precarious time because Putin realises he cannot win on the ground in a fair fight if the West decisively backs Ukraine,’ Mr Barros said.

‘His entire strategy is predicated on eroding the Western political resolve and convincing the West that either a Russian victory is inevitable or that the various costs involved don’t pan out in favour of the West, so it should cut its losses or negotiate.  

‘A lot of what Putin does with the war in Ukraine is in our perspective designed to shape Western decision-makers’ perspectives about Ukraine’s prospects for victory. 

‘With the debate right now in the US about military aid, the anticipated offensive is designed to create an information effect to reinforce the misleading narrative that Ukraine is an endless war, a giant money pit and the American people can’t write huge cheques in perpetuity.     

‘This of course is not the strategy pursued by Ukraine and its advocates but these information operations go as far as shaping battlefield manoeuvres aimed at presenting this over-simplistic narrative.’

Ukraine faces a possible renewed Russian offensive as the grinding and resource-intensive fighting continues in the east and south almost two years since the outset of the full-scale invasion.  

Moscow is anticipated to launch offensives in Kharkiv and other eastern regions once the ground hardens, making mechanised warfare easier, according to the Washington-headquartered think tank.

At the same time, the amount of critical military aid delivered to Ukraine from the nation’s western backers —such as German Leopard tanks and British Storm Shadow missiles — is waning. 

‘At present the war is at a fraught and pivotal moment, both on the ground and in the closely connected policy debate in the US,’ Mr Barros said.  

‘On the ground, the Ukrainians were obviously unable to achieve their desired results from the counter-offensive last summer and their effort has largely culminated.  

‘The Russians have subsequently regained the initiative across the theatre except for in Kherson, where the Ukrainians are working on developing a lasting presence on the southern left bank of Dnipro River.   

‘The Russians have been conserving forces, conducting operational-level rotations, re-enforcing their units and have intensified their glide bomb attacks in the east. 

‘Over the new year there were indications that they slightly de-intensified their attacks, possibly to prepare for this anticipated major offensive.’ 

A temporary window when the ground freezes before the spring thaw would be the optimum time for Russia to launch a fresh round of attacks, Mr Barros told Metro.co.uk  

‘This allows forces to conduct manoeuvre warfare ahead of the spring months,’ he said.

‘It’s unclear if Moscow will be successful, as Russian milibloggers and military experts are sceptical if it can pull off a major offensive effort, given that none has been successful for well over a year.’ 

With reports of Ukraine running short of artillery shells and anti-aircraft missiles, Mr Barros nevertheless assesses that Kyiv can eventually prevail. 

‘Despite all these challenges, I remain cautiously optimistic for Ukraine,’ he said.

‘There are a lot of lessons to be learnt from the 2023 counter-offensive; at the time they didn’t have the right type of decisive equipment such as F16s, sufficient vehicles or long-range precision missiles.   

‘Only now, almost two years into the war, does Ukraine have the weapons systems such as tanks and missiles which were at the centre of set-piece policy battles, so it will be able to plan operations without one hand tied behind its back.

‘At the same time, Ukraine’s Defence Industrial Base, allowing Kyiv to stand up its own and joint productions of arms, is revving up.’

Differences remain among Ukraine’s allies in NATO, which stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the EU and across the world about the supply of arms, with some withholding or stalling on supplies.   

Speaking from Washington, Mr Barros told Metro.co.uk that such internal divisions may prove costly for the West as Russian ‘grey zone’ operations continue to target neighbouring Baltic states.

‘If Russia achieves what it would regard as success in Ukraine, including locking down what they have and using it as a launchpad for future operations, it will embolden Putin,’ he said.   

‘He has made clear that NATO is anathema to him and he wants to defeat the alliance militarily.   

‘Putin does not believe the former eastern bloc states are truly sovereign and continuously advances the information operations to manufacture a casus belli for war in Ukraine and perpetually target Baltic states, including disinformation about how they are trying to repress their ethnic Russian minorities.  

‘We also know he has set up the military conditions to re-enforce Russia’s military posture on NATO’s eastern flank.  

‘Putin cannot win a shooting war with NATO so his strategy and tactics are to rot and degrade the alliance, convincing it that it can take step-losses in certain kinds of ways.   

‘If he can destroy NATO’s credibility and its ability to deter a Russian attack, he can effectively defeat the alliance without a large-scale shooting war. If the Russians are successful in Ukraine they can normalise Russian wars of conquest in eastern Europe and trivialise the sovereignty of Baltic, former Soviet states.’  

As Metro.co.uk has previously reported, Russian influence and disruption campaigns have been detected in neighbouring countries including Moldova and Lithuania. 

Russia’s ally Belarus, one of the launchpads for the all-out invasion, has already been a siting ground for the Kremlin’s military activity.  

‘Even if Russia is not successful, the indications are that its military is moving away from the lean and mean forces that would fight on Russia’s periphery to something that structurally resembles the old Red Army,’ Mr Barros said.  

‘Belarus has gone under the radar but over the last three years in particular Russia has substantially increased its control and influence over Ukraine’s northern neighbour.   

‘They have freedom of movement and a new military presence in Belarus and geographically with the location of Kaliningrad along a tiny corridor to the east there is a strategic choke point.

‘Russia could try and conduct a limited incursion into a neighbouring Baltic state and try and convince Western policymakers it is not worth risking a conventional war over a territory with a predominantly ethnic Russian population. If Putin can convince Western decision-makers that war in Ukraine didn’t affect people in say, Belgium, that badly, he can do the same with the Baltic states.   

‘At which point we are looking at the strategic defeat of the NATO alliance.’ 

NATO is due to undertake its largest exercise in decades, with 90,000 personnel from all 31 allies and invitee member Sweden due to take part in ‘Steadfast Defender’ between next week and May.  

On the battlefield, Russia is continuing to try and advance on the eastern front as it pursues what is widely viewed as a war of attrition.  

The UK Ministry of Defence said that the Kremlin’s troops were attempting to encircle the city of Adviika in the eastern Donetsk region.

The Defence Intelligence report stated that ‘Russia has made very limited territorial gains at a significant cost in both materiel and personnel’.  

The update also said that Ukrainian marines continue to maintain a ‘bridgehead’ on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, despite Russian attempts to ‘dislodge’ them.  

Ukraine’s elite 73rd Naval Centre of Operations, part of Kyiv’s special operations forces has been heavily involved in establishing the foothold and in operations in and around the Black Sea.  

One commando with the unit told Metro.co.uk earlier this week how he had opened fire on two car loads of Russian troops on a daring mission behind enemy lines. 

MORE : How Ukrainian commando in wetsuit armed with a pistol gunned down Russian troops

MORE : Stark warning to the world as Putin’s dark arts seep past Nato’s border

MORE : Putin ‘clinging to imperialist fantasy’ amid ‘greatest failure’ in Ukraine

MORE : Putin suffering ‘Roman emperor syndrome’ and is ‘utterly stalled’ in Ukraine

Do you have a story you would like to share? Contact josh.layton@metro.co.uk

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.