- Category
- Latest news
Military Analyst Debunks Myths About Russia’s Goals in Ukraine: It Is Not About Territory
- Authors
![Amira_barkhush]( "Amira Barkhush")
Danish military analyst Anders Puck Nielsen shared a video on his YouTube channel delving into Russia’s objectives in Ukraine and addressing common misconceptions surrounding them.
Here is a summary of Nielsen’s analysis.
It is about political influence, not territory
Nielsen believes that the main goal of Russia in Ukraine is not related to acquiring but securing political influence in the region.
“It is by far the biggest misconception about the war that it's a conflict over who gets to keep the most territory once the war is over,” he said.
“When Putin launched the invasion in 2022, he didn't have the ambition to conquer all of Ukraine and to make it a part of Russia. The goal was to achieve regime change in Ukraine and to insert a government that would be more favorable to Russia, that would be under Putin’s control.”
Russia won’t settle for just keeping the occupied territories
The Danish expert emphasizes that simply letting Russia keep the gained territories would not satisfy its ambitions.
According to Nielsen, stopping Ukraine from existing as a formally independent country is not Russia’s goal. Instead, what Russia wants to achieve is a peace settlement that would destabilize Ukraine to the extent that it becomes vulnerable to Russian influence.
“If Russia gets to keep the territories that they've occupied but the rest of Ukraine becomes a part of the Western community and it turns into a prosperous European country with strong security guarantees against Russian influence, then from a Russian perspective, that means they lost the war,” Nielsen notes.
The focus should be on security guarantees
Nielsen says that many of the peace plans that are now being proposed are precisely offering Russia everything it wants since they focus on the secondary issue of territories, and not on ensuring a prosperous future for Ukraine with security guarantees.
The expert describes two different deals that look exactly the same regarding the occupied territories.
“In the first scenario, Russia keeps control over the occupied territories, and the rest of Ukraine has conditions that allow for a prosperous future as a part of the West. And Ukraine will have strong guarantees that Russia cannot start a new war in the future. And this way, Ukraine remains politically independent of Moscow,” Nielsen describes the first scenario.
“But in the second scenario, Russia also keeps control over the occupied territories in exactly the same fashion. However, the terms here are that the rest of Ukraine will always be vulnerable to new Russian attacks, and Ukraine will be politically destabilized in a way that eventually will give Russia control over Ukrainian politics,” Nielsen adds, noting that the devil is in the details when it comes to peace negotiations.
