Andrew Korybko
Neither average Russians nor the elite are capable of
influencing Putin, who’s the only person on the Russian side that decides when
the Ukrainian Conflict ends and on what terms, and not even a radical spike in
Ukrainian strikes is likely to convince him to de facto surrender like Zelensky
demands
Zelensky announced in a post on Telegram that
he approved a 40-day operation to influence Russia to end the Ukrainian
Conflict. The innuendo is that it should freeze the frontlines without
first obtaining full control over Donbass like Putin hoped would happen as the
quid pro quo per the reported
“Spirit of Anchorage” whereby Trump was supposed to first coerce
Zelensky into withdrawing from that region. Extrapolating further, Zelensky
probably also wants NATO
peacekeepers, which Russia shouldn’t oppose.
In pursuit of this end, which
would indisputably amount to a Russian defeat that Putin never signaled any
interest thus far in even countenancing no matter what might happen, Zelensky
will almost certainly ramp up his US-assisted
strikes against Russia. This can be intuited from him reporting in the
same post just before announcing his 40-day influence operation that he
received a briefing about these strikes. The timing also points to this being
his modus operandi considering September’s Duma elections.
As was assessed here in mid-May, Putin’s foes hope that United Russia fares worse than its 49.82% of the popular vote during the last elections in 2021, thus forcing it into a coalition with either the communist or nationalist opposition parties as a symbolic defeat for Putin. Zelensky’s 40-day influence operation will stretch into early August, thus giving Putin around six weeks to wrap up the conflict per Zelensky’s calculations and selling the outcome as a victory in order to boost his party’s ratings before the elections.


























