Putin realized that Trump poses no threat to him, so he's increasing pressure on Ukraine — political analyst
The russian dictator vladimir putin is not abandoning his strategic goal, which is the destruction of Ukraine as an independent state. And today, he believes the time is right to pressure both the international community and Ukraine itself. Political expert Kostiantyn Matviienko stated this in an interview with OstroV.
“Putin seeks to destroy Ukraine as a state. Sometimes he’s closer to achieving this goal, sometimes further. And depending on what he feels on a particular day, he acts accordingly. At the moment, he’s apparently being told that russia is advancing, that they have opportunities to push toward Sumy, that they might try to cross to the right bank of the Dnipro. And so he says: that’s it, we’ll swallow all of Ukraine”, - the expert noted.
At the same time, according to Kostiantyn Matviienko, putin’s behavior is closely tied to the foreign policy context. In particular, he responds to the position of the United States and the actions of Donald Trump, who, in the kremlin's view, poses no threat.
“Russians spent some time carefully studying Trump’s behavior, and in their view, he lived up to their best expectations. In the russian federation, they thought the United States would intervene more harshly in the russian-Ukrainian war, but we see Trump blocking sanctions, disrupting the G7 summit, and now even the NATO summit. Putin realized: Trump is not a threat to him”, - the political analyst explained.
Moreover, amid the war between Iran and Israel, which is distracting the West’s attention, putin is intensifying his actions.
“This is a very difficult, costly campaign with a completely unpredictable outcome. And in such a foreign policy environment, putin sees a window of opportunity: he can continue to apply pressure on the international community and on Ukrainian society (through propaganda, a fifth column in Ukraine, etc.)”, - added Kostiantyn Matviienko.
In the political analyst’s opinion, the kremlin’s recent actions indicate growing confidence, not desperation.
“I can only judge by his actions, and recently we’ve seen massive shelling of cities like Odesa, Kremenchuk, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Kyiv. Indeed, his actions have become more aggressive, which means — more confident. This doesn’t look like agony. Many of my colleagues say: he’s being aggressive now because he has no resources left, because putin is spending his last reserves. I don’t think so. In my view, he still has enough resources to continue this aggressive war”, - the expert concluded.