Yves here. Below, Andrew Korybko looks at whether Russia will take the logical next steps in its war of continuing to move further West. Notice that one of the logical next areas from a military perspective, Sumy, at least per 2010 election results, was not Russia friendly<\/a>. However, one can argue Ukraine put it on the menu by launching its bone-headed Kursk stunt from there. A second reason is an advance into Sumy would put Russia within close striking range of Kiev. While that might not be enough to get Zelensky to call for new elections, an alternative way for him to get out of Dodge would be our afore-mentioned \u201cgovernment in exile\u201d gambit, which his UK and EU besties would enthusiastically support. That would still set the stage for new elections (I assume the Rada could call them; experts please opine) and leave Zelensky and his allies kvetching but not able to do all that much.<\/p>\n A second issue in \u201cWhat does Russia do next\u201d is its apparent distaste for now to take major cities. Russia seems to prefer to bypass them and\/or cut off supply routes and wait for the retreat or collapse of Ukraine forces before it attempts clearing and occupation. I have not looked at maps to see what that means for Kharkiv city, which is Ukraine\u2019s second largest city and has a pre-war population of about 1.5 million. Due to its high proportion of ethnic Russians and that oblast bordering Russia, securing it would seem to be a priority.<\/p>\n And speaking of buffers\u2026. when the West started using long-range missiles, Foreign Minister Lavrov pointed out that the effect would be to increase the amount of territory Russia would need to take in order to secure what it deemed to be Russia, as in now including the four disputed oblasts in pre-2022 Ukraine. This question becomes recursive, and Lavrov never resolved that matter. For instance, if the longest missile the West might use has a 300 km range, that implies needing a safety zone 300 km wide at the western borders of Russia and the new Russia of the four oblasts. But is that a DMZ? What becomes of the people, communities and productive enterprise in that safety zone? Even if they were \u201cdemilitarized,\u201d they would still be vulnerable to attack if what was left of Ukraine, Banderite insurgents, or belligerent EU members wanted to carry on the fight.<\/p>\n And the Russian idea for the proper width of any such zone is probably over 500 km. If memory serves me right, the longest range Western missile is the German Taurus, at over 500 km. But the German Bundestag twice refused to approve Ukraine requests for their use (Prime Minister Scholz backed the second nein). However, Germany now has an uber-hawk Prime Minster in Freidrich Merz who may succeed in getting this Parliament to authorize Taurus deliveries to Ukraine.<\/p>\n Finally, it is odd to see the degree to which Korybko parrots patently bogus Western talking point with no caveats, like the notion that Europe could \u201cpump Ukraine full of arms.\u201d Europe has drained its weapons caches and has very little in the way of indigenous production capacity. It would either have to procure weapons from the black market, which did not work out well when it tried buying howitzer shells, or the US, which does not have all that much capacity either and has competing priorities. It also seems peculiar that Korybko treats the peace process as being in Russian interests, when Russian officials from Putin on down are still harping on Western duplicity and hostile intentions (see the Lavrov interview with Judge Napolitano, Larry Johnson, and one other interlocutor, or Putin\u2019s remarks right before his Trump call to the Pleanary Session of the RSPP Congress<\/a>:<\/p>\n Sanctions are neither temporary nor targeted measures; they constitute a mechanism of systemic, strategic pressure against our nation. Regardless of global developments or shifts in the international order, our competitors will perpetually seek to constrain Russia and diminish its economic and technological capacities.<\/p>\n Moreover, whereas the so-called Western elites previously attempted to cloak this confrontation in propriety, they now evidently seem to no longer feel the need to be concerned about appearances, nor do they intend to be. They not only routinely threaten Russia with new sanctions but churn out these packages incessantly. One gains the impression that even the architects themselves have lost track of the restrictions imposed and their targets.<\/p>\n Here, the Ministry of Finance has tallied them. I state with confidence: 28,595 sanctions against individuals and legal entities. This exceeds \u2013 by a significant margin \u2013 all sanctions ever imposed on all other nations combined.<\/p>\n Even if there is some gesture from their side \u2013 say, they propose to lift or ease something \u2013 we can expect that another way will be found to exert pressure, to throw a spanner in the works, as was the case with the well-known Jackson\u2013Vanik amendment. The Soviet Union, against which it was originally introduced, no longer existed, and relations between Russia and the United States of America were at their absolute best, as good as they could possibly be. Yet the amendment continued to remain in force. And when it was seemingly repealed, it was in fact simply replaced with another restrictive instrument against Russia. Recall this: repealed, then supplanted.<\/p>\n I reiterate: sanctions and restrictions are the reality of the existing new stage of development that the entire world, the entire global economy, has entered. The global competitive struggle has intensified, assuming increasingly sophisticated and uncompromising forms.<\/p>\n Thus, literally before our eyes, a new spiral of economic rivalry is unfolding, and under these conditions, it is almost embarrassing to recall the norms and rules of the World Trade Organisation, once zealously promoted by the West. Once\u2026 When? When these rules advantaged them\u2026 As soon as they became disadvantageous, everything began to change. And all these negotiations stalled. And, in fact, no one needs them anymore.<\/p>\n This is evident, and I have emphasised it repeatedly: a return to pre-existing conditions is impossible. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n So Russia will continue to prosecute the conflict. The only questions are how and how far.<\/p>\n By Andrew Korybko, a Moscow-based American political analyst who specializes in the global systemic transition to multipolarity in the New Cold War. He has a PhD from MGIMO,<\/i><\/b><\/a> which is under the umbrella of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Originally published at his website<\/a><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n This might be the only way to ensure Ukraine\u2019s demilitarization if diplomacy fails.<\/strong><\/p>\n The nascent<\/a> Russian<\/a>\u2013US<\/a> \u201cNew<\/a> D\u00e9tente<\/a>\u201d didn\u2019t lead to a ceasefire<\/a> during the latest Putin<\/a>\u2013Trump<\/a> call<\/a>, thus meaning that the hot phase of the Ukrainian Conflict<\/a>continues, albeit with a proposed cessation of attacks on energy infrastructure provided that Kiev agrees. At present, Russia is on the brink of completely pushing Ukrainian forces out<\/a> of Russia\u2019s Kursk Region and into Ukraine\u2019s Sumy Region, while the southwestern Donbass front has seen Russian troops approach the gates of Dniepropetrovsk Region<\/a>.<\/p>\n Putin will soon be faced with the fateful choice of either keeping Russia\u2019s ground campaign limited to those four former Ukrainian regions that voted to join Russia in September 2022\u2019s referenda or expanding it to include Sumy, Dniepropetrovsk, and\/or (once again) Kharkov Regions. The second scenario is attractive is because it could enable Russia to go around frontline defenses in Donbass and\/or Zaporozhye and thus advance its goal of fully capturing the entirety of the regions that it claims.<\/p>\n The precedent for doing so rests in last May\u2019s push into Kharkov<\/a>, which aimed to achieve in Donbass what the abovementioned Dniepropetrovsk push could achieve in Zaporozhye, but it quickly stalemated and didn\u2019t achieve the intended goal. The battlefield conditions have changed quite a lot since then so perhaps even a push into Sumy Region, which is much further away from the disputed territories, could have a chance of setting into motion a domino effect if it\u2019s only just comparatively more successful.<\/p>\n Ditto for if Russia simultaneously advances into all three \u2013 Sumy, Kharkov, and Dniepropetrovsk Regions \u2013 but doing so, or even just significantly advancing into one of them, risks making Trump mistakenly think<\/a> that Putin was just buying time with their talks and isn\u2019t sincere about peace. That perception might then prompt an overreaction that could see him strictly enforcing secondary sanctions<\/a> on Russian energy in order to deal a heavy financial blow to the Kremlin and\/or pulling out all the stops in arming Ukraine.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, \u201chardliners<\/a>\u201d might still try to persuade Putin to risk that on the presumption that Trump is bluffing about \u201cescalating to de-escalate\u201d if their talks fail, but that\u2019ll be difficult to pull off since Putin is the consummate pragmatist<\/a> and thus averse to taking major risks. That said, they might get him to act more boldly then usual by arguing that further on-the-ground gains might be what\u2019s ultimately required to force Ukraine to peace on Russia\u2019s terms, after which it can then withdraw from those other regions.<\/p>\n Apart from the aforesaid motive, this sequence of events is also predicated on Putin expecting that the Europeans would defy Trump by continuing to pump Ukraine full of arms even if the US cuts it off yet again<\/a>, which would turn any ceasefire into an opportunity for Kiev to rearm to Russia\u2019s disadvantage. It could therefore accordingly follow that Russia\u2019s only realistic recourse might be to expand its ground campaign into Sumy, Dniepropetrovsk, and\/or Kharkov Regions to continue demilitarizing Ukraine.<\/p>\n On that note, this would advance the proposed goal of creating a demilitarized \u201cTrans-Dnieper\u201d region east of the river and north of the territories that Russia claims as its own, which was elaborated on here<\/a>. Everything leading up to this scenario takes for granted that Trump won\u2019t meaningfully \u201cescalate to de-escalate\u201d, or that this wouldn\u2019t impede Russia\u2019s expanded ground campaigns, and that the Europeans won\u2019t conventionally intervene either. None of this can be taken for granted, though, so it\u2019s a huge risk.<\/p>\n For that reason, Putin might continue playing it safe for now by keeping Russia\u2019s ground campaign limited to the four former Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims as its own, though perhaps authorizing small-scale advances into adjacent regions on a case-by-case basis. These could be approved to chase retraining Ukrainian soldiers to their next major fortifications in Sumy, Dniepropetrovsk, and\/or Kharkov Regions in order press Russia\u2019s advantage but without seriously besieging those areas for the time being.<\/p>\n The purpose could be to signal Russia\u2019s ground escalation dominance so that Trump does his utmost to coerce Ukraine into concessions in order to avoid the broader escalation that he might otherwise feel pressured to go through with to \u201csave face\u201d if Russia achieves a breakthrough and steamrolls westward. This sort of \u201cgoodwill gesture\u201d would be different from the prior ones in the sense that Russia would continue advancing while negotiating instead of pulling back like before for the sake of clinching a deal.<\/p>\n All the same, Russia would also exercise self-restraint by not fully pressing its advantage since that could prompt an overreaction from the US that might dangerously complicate the peace process. So long as Russia\u2019s intentions are communicated to the US in advance, any escalation should remain manageable. This approach would still entail some risks, but typically cautious Putin<\/a> might feel comfortable enough with their reduced odds to conclude that the potentially game-changing benefits are worth it.<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/00-Russia.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
![\"Print](\"https:\/\/cdn.printfriendly.com\/buttons\/print-button-gray.png\")
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n