Vladimir Putin will declare Ukraine conflict a WAR next week, warns ex-British Army general

Russian President Vladimir Putin will formally declare the conflict in Ukraine a war next week, a former senior British Army officer warned yesterday.

Until now the Kremlin despot has called the invasion a “special military operation” but General Sir Richard Barrons, an ex-Commander of Joint Forces Command, said Putin would use Monday’s (May 9) annual Victory Day parade in Moscow to “shift the narrative for the Russian people from a ‘special military operation’.

Something that was intended to be short, sharp and decisive, to what is becoming a long, drawn-out, attritional war - and he will probably use the word ‘war’.

The Victory Day celebrations mark the Soviets’ triumph over the Nazis in the Second World War.

Putin has increasingly used the Red Square occasion to unveil new weapons or equipment.

Vladimir Putin will formally declare the conflict in Ukraine a war next week, General Sir Richard Barrons has said. (PA)

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion in February (via REUTERS)

This year, the focus is expected to be on the war in Ukraine.

General Sir Richard believed rebranding the conflict would allow Putin to make greater use of young conscripts.

“That provides a different legal basis in Russia for hanging onto the current cycle of conscripts and deploying other reserves and taking other measures,” he said.

“Essentially, it’s bracing Russia for what will become a long, drawn-out war in Ukraine, which will become more about annexation than anything else.”

General Sir Richard predicted a stalemate in the Donbas as Ukrainian and Russian forces do battle.

The destruction of a grain warehouse by the Russian missile in the Sinelnykivsky district in the Dnepropetrovsk region in Ukraine on May 2 (@Valentyn.Reznichenko/Newsflash)

“The most likely outcome is it grinds down into a stalemate and that may cause Russia to stop or if it’s still got plenty of resources I think it will then turn its attention to taking more territory in the south,” he told the BBC.

“There is a very stiff fight and it’s inconclusive.

"The Russians have made some progress but the Ukrainian military have counter-attacked and taken back territory in other places.

“This is really now a race between the Russian ability to be able to concentrate force in ways in which they have just not managed so far.

General Sir Richard believed rebranding the conflict would allow Putin to make greater use of young conscripts (Getty Images)

"And on the other hand the Ukrainian military’s ability to get these heavy weapons, particularly the artillery from the US and Germany, in order to break up these attacks and deal with the Russian artillery.

“It’s very hard to call how that is going to turn out.”

The deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Ihor Zhovka, insisted Ukraine would “definitely win the Battle of the Donbas”.