Vladimir Putin may seek confrontation with the West to justify high Russian battlefield casualties in his Ukraine war, military experts warned on Wednesday.
The Institute for The Study of War argued that Putin may also seek the clash with Nato countries “to set conditions for permanent Russian military build-up”.
The Washington-based think tank believes that the Russian president has no intention to “negotiate in good faith with Ukraine” to end the conflict and is instead planning to try to persuade the “West to betray Ukraine through negotiations”.
It highlighted the Ministry of Defence in London estimating just days ago that the average daily number of Russian casualties in Ukraine rose by almost 300 during the course of 2023 and that “if the numbers continue at the current rate over the next year, Russia will have lost over half a million personnel in Ukraine".
The vast majority of these casualties are injuries.
Out of an estimated 350,000 Russian casualties so far, the MoD believes around 70,000 are fatalities.
In its latest analysis on the war, the ISW said: “Putin may be expanding his war aims in Ukraine to include confrontation with the West in an effort to set conditions for permanent Russian military build-up and to justify high battlefield sacrifices.
“Russia gained almost no meaningful ground in 2023 at a high manpower cost.”
The briefing continued: “Putin’s framing of his war in Ukraine as a Russian struggle against the West – and not Ukraine – indicates that he does not intend to negotiate in good faith with Ukraine and is setting information conditions aimed at convincing the West to betray Ukraine through negotiations.
“Putin is likely deliberately and falsely framing Ukraine as pawn without agency in the Russia-West conflict to mask his expansionist and maximalist goals of establishing full effective Russian control of Ukraine.”
Britain has led the West in arming Ukraine and giving Kyiv diplomatic and political support.
Rishi Sunak told Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday that the UK will continue to "stand steadfastly by" Ukraine throughout 2024.
The Prime Minister also discussed providing "further deliveries of lethal aid" to Kyiv with the Ukrainian president as they spoke in a phone call.
In a readout of the call between the leaders, a Downing Street spokeswoman said: "Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spoke to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky today.
"He offered his condolences to all those Ukrainians killed and injured in barbaric Russian airstrikes over the Christmas period."
Kremlin forces killed at least five people and more than 100 were injured in the bombardment of Kyiv and Kharkiv, Ukraine's two largest cities, the Ukrainian government said on Tuesday.
The Downing Street spokeswoman continued: "The Prime Minister said the UK would continue to stand steadfastly by Ukraine as they fight aggression and occupation, throughout 2024 and into the future.
"The leaders discussed recent developments in the conflict, including progress in the Black Sea and the success of the Ukrainian air defence, bolstered by UK-supplied ground-to-air missiles.
"The Prime Minister set out ongoing UK work to provide military and diplomatic support to Ukraine, including through further deliveries of lethal aid, support for President Zelensky's peace plan and a long-term security framework."
The UK has committed £4.6 billion of military spending towards Ukraine's defence against the Russian invasion since 2022, with £2.3 billion provided in 2022, and matched in 2023.
Ministers have come under pressure in recent months to reveal when they will provide further military funding for 2024.
In the latest military action, Russia’s air defence systems destroyed a total of 12 Ukraine-launched launched missiles over the Belgorod region that borders Ukraine, the Russian defence ministry said on Wednesday.
Russian officials earlier said one man had been killed and 11 people injured in the latest series of attacks on the city of Belgorod, over the border from Ukraine.
Putin on Monday described the attacks on Belgorod as a “terrorist act.”
He accused Western nations of using Ukraine to try to “put Russia in its place.”
But the Russian president’s military has unleashed the biggest air strikes on Kyiv, Kharkiv and other parts of Ukraine so far during his war started in February 2022.
Ukraine’s two largest cities came under attack early Tuesday from Russian missiles that killed five people and injured as many as 130, officials said, as the war approached its two-year mark and the Kremlin stepped up its winter bombardment of urban areas.
Air defences shot down all 10 of the Russian Kinzhal missiles, which can fly at 10 times the speed of sound, out of about 100 of various types that were launched, said General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief.
But other missiles got through in Kyiv and in Kharkiv, the provincial capital of the northeastern region. In Kyiv and its surrounding region, four people were killed and about 70 were wounded, while in the Kharkiv region, one person was killed and about 60 were hurt, the Interior Ministry said.
The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal is an air-launched ballistic missile that is rarely used by Russian forces due to its cost and limited stocks. The barrage fired Tuesday was the highest number used in one attack since the start of the war, Ukraine air force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said.
The latest round of attacks by Russia began Friday with its largest single assault on Ukraine of the war, as fighting along the 620-mile front line has subsided into grinding attrition amid winter. At least 41 civilians were killed since the weekend.
In other developments, Russia’s Defence Ministry said one of its warplanes accidentally released munitions over the southwestern Russian village of Petropavlovka in the Voronezh region Tuesday, damaging six houses but causing no injuries. It said an investigation will determine the cause of the accident but didn’t say what type of weapon the warplane dropped.
In April, munitions accidentally released by a Russian warplane caused a powerful blast in Belgorod, damaging several cars and slightly injuring two people.
