He would only need 24 hours to end the war in Ukraine, said Donald Trump, former President of the United States of America who was re-elected last week. He left it open how exactly he wanted to achieve this. “I can’t show you these plans. Because if I did, I wouldn’t be able to use them,” Trump said.
Whether his call to Vladimir Putin on Thursday was part of his plan: uncertain. According to media reports, the US President-elect has recommended to the Kremlin boss not to escalate the war of aggression against Ukraine.
Trump also referred to the US military presence in Europe. It was also about the goal of achieving peace in Europe. Kremlin spokesman Peskov has now denied a conversation between Trump and Putin.
On Trump’s call: “I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin responds with escalation”
Military expert Gustav Gressel from the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) classifies the situation in Ukraine for FOCUS online. “It won’t surprise me if Putin responds to Trump’s call and warning about escalation with an escalation to show: ‘You don’t have anything to order me here.'” If Trump then doesn’t draw any conclusions from this, he would have done the same with Putin Lost face.
Gressel says he can only shake his head at the negotiation and mediation plans that Trump – and also Chancellor Scholz – claim to be pursuing. You just have to ask yourself the logical question: “Why should Putin, who has already invested so much in this war, give up just because the West is no longer interested?”
Of course, Putin will be open to starting a “negotiation process” without preconditions. “But then – as in the Minsk process – he will delay the process by any means possible and in the meantime achieve militarily what he wanted to achieve militarily anyway.”
“First things have to go downhill for Putin on the front, and it’s not happening.”
Putin can only be brought into serious negotiations if he has the feeling that the conditions will become worse for him later. “For that to happen, things would have to go downhill for him at the front, and that’s not the case,” emphasizes Gressel. Western politicians have no answer to how to reverse this momentum – neither Trump nor Biden.
In any case, there are currently no signs of de-escalation on the battlefield. On the contrary: Putin has gathered over 50,000 soldiers around the Russian region of Kursk, which is occupied by Ukraine – including soldiers from North Korea, “cannon fodder,” as Gressel says.
Swiss military expert Albert Stahel sees the joint deployment of Russian and North Korean soldiers as a kind of PR campaign for Putin. “With this show he wants to demonstrate to the Russian population that Russia has not only political but also military allies.” The expert now expects a reaction from South Korea: “The South Koreans will supply Ukraine with heavy weapons. Their tank production is excellent.”
Ukraine expects an imminent attack in Kursk.
Russia has also officially put into force a defense agreement with North Korea that provides military support in the event of an attack and close cooperation against Western sanctions. According to US and Ukrainian sources, North Korea is supporting the Russian offensive in Ukraine by sending over 10,000 soldiers to the Kursk region of Russia and supplying ammunition.
In addition, Putin launched a major offensive on Ukraine just 72 hours after Trump’s call. There was an air alert across the country. At least six people were killed by the rocket vehicle and cities and infrastructure were once again devastated.
“Every winter, Russia launches its large waves of attacks in the fall”
In principle, the current attacks are nothing unexpected, says Gressel. “Every winter in the fall – usually in mid-October – Russia launches its large waves of attacks against the Ukrainian energy infrastructure.” Yesterday, for example, Russian Mig31 interceptors took off with Kinshal missiles and bombers flew over the Caspian Sea.
Stahel sees three reasons for Russia’s intensification of warfare:
- First: Putin wants to exploit the current advantageous situation in the theater of war to his advantage;
- Second: At the same time, he wanted to exploit the weakness of the Ukrainian armed forces – too few reserves;
- Third: Since it is still unclear how the coming of the Trump administration will affect the war, Putin wants to take advantage of the situation, which is now determined by the weakness of the Biden administration and the domestic political situation in Germany.
However, the election of Trump was suboptimal for Putin, Stahel told FOCUS online. “He would have preferred the weak Harris as an opponent. When she was elected, he was probably hoping for unrest in the USA that would have been triggered by Trump supporters.”
According to Gressel, the fact that the major attacks are only taking place in November is due to the fact that there were negotiations between Ukraine and Russia about a partial ceasefire. The content: Ukraine is no longer firing at Russian refineries, and Russia is no longer firing at Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
The result: Russia is trying to quickly destroy all Ukrainian power plants in the summer, says Gressel. “And when the ceasefire comes, everything will be ruined anyway.” In the summer, Russia fired a relatively large number of Kinshal missiles and therefore now needs longer to get enough cruise missiles for the next big waves of attacks.
Situation in Kursk: “’Hold at all costs’ does not exist in Kursk”
And according to Gressel, retreat could also be imminent in Kursk: “‘Hold at all costs’ was (unfortunately) in Avdiivka or Bakhmut, but not in Kursk,” he says. The Ukrainians have never defended the area around Kursk as stubbornly as they have defended parts of their own territory. “You withdrew when things became too difficult.”
The major offensive on Kursk was only a matter of time. There is a lot at stake here for Putin. “With the successful conduct of the war by the Ukrainians in the Kursk theater, he has probably lost some of his reputation in Russia,” says Stahel. That’s why he now absolutely wants to push the Ukrainian armed forces out again. “But this could fail given the strong Ukrainian forces in the Kursk theater of war.”
From a purely military point of view, Gressel explains, they would stay in Kursk as long as they could inflict heavy losses on the Russians from good positions (the terrain was easily defensible), and withdraw if the pressure became too great.
But there are two problems with this. First: finding the right time to withdraw. And secondly, to fend off political interventions for “hold at all costs”.
However, with the election of Trump, the political value of Kursk as a bargaining chip has increased: “With Trump, many things are more uncertain than before,” says Gressel. Nevertheless, difficult questions remain for the Ukrainians and the West: “How many irreplaceable resources do you want to invest in a bargaining chip? For how long? And what are the opportunity costs in the East?”
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