Russia blinks on Ukraine operation?

 Fox News:

Russia has potentially signaled intent to end the invasion of Ukraine and integrate the Kherson region, an intelligence expert told Fox News Digital.

Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov told journalists that "residents of Kherson must decide for themselves" whether they will "appeal" for "integration of the region into the Russian territory," according to TASS.

Peskov refused to be drawn on the possibility of a referendum, saying he "stated what I wanted to state," but former DIA officer Rebekah Koffler argued that Moscow will proceed with a referendum to provide "legal justification" for Russia to integrate Kherson.
...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that completion of the "special operation" would stop the West’s attempts to "promote a unipolar world," which Lavrov defined as "attempts to undermine international law."

Lavrov repeated the same talking points Moscow has pushed since before the invasion started, claiming that Russia's intent behind the invasion was to protect "the inhabitants of the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics from the Kyiv neo-Nazi regime" and ensure "the West will not build a military threat to the security of the Russian Federation from the territory of Ukraine."

UKRAINE DIVERTS SOME RUSSIAN GAS FLOWS AS ASSAULT CONTINUES IN SOUTHEAST

"This is the first time, since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, that such a senior Russian official mentioned the idea of ending the ‘special operation,’" Koffler said.

The Kherson region would provide Russia its much-desired access to Southern Ukraine and establish a land bridge to Crimea. By securing this access, Russia would be able to control the mouth of the Dnieper River, which bisects Ukraine and provides access along the length of the country.

"Realizing he can’t win the war – as long as the U.S. and NATO are providing formidable weaponry and real-time intelligence to Ukraine – Putin is probably considering cutting his losses and ending the operation at this stage," Koffler said.
...

I do not believe Ukraine will be willing to accept this attempt by Russia to incorporate part of its territory.  At this point, it appears that Ukraine is winning the war.  Ukraine has surprised not only the Russians but US and other western analysts. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more