Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that over the past two days, 100 drones and 90 missiles targeted Ukraine, striking critical power infrastructure. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the attacks as a “despicable escalation,” accusing Russia of deploying cluster munitions.
Speaking at the Collective Security Treaty Organization Summit, Putin claimed these strikes were a response to attacks deep within Russian territory. He further warned of potential strikes on decision-making centres in Kyiv using Russia’s newly developed Oreshnik ballistic missile, now in serial production and recently deployed against Ukraine.
However, Zelenskyy vowed a “tough response” to any form of “Russian blackmail.”
To analyse the implications of this heightened tension and what lies ahead, CNBC-TV18 spoke with Brahma Chellaney, a Strategic Affairs Expert, and Olha Vorozhbyt, a Foreign Policy Expert.
Edited Excerpts
Q: How do you see the threats coming from the Russian President? Do you expect some serious escalation in the Russia-Ukraine war in the days to come?
Vorozhbyt: This is not the first time we have seen these threats. These threats are aimed mainly at the partners and on the countries that support Ukraine. It is a message to them not to support Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin understands power, and it is odd to say that the Oreshnik was launched as a response to Ukraine launching long-range missiles into Russia, because it was Russia which actually started the war with Ukraine. So, we have heard about this blackmail for a long time. However, Putin is also ready for escalation. You’ve seen the escalation with the North Korean forces now taking part in the war from the Russian side. This was a major escalation, which is very important also to understand for the whole world, especially in Asia, because taking into consideration the level of the war, the level of the ongoing battles, the level of the equipment that is used now, the experience that these North Korean soldiers could get in the battle, it could bring them back to Asia. So this is what is essential to understand.
Q: This is a tricky period, isn’t it? President Biden wants to leave a legacy behind. In two months, you’ll have a Trump presidency. Powers such as Russia and also Israel have the option of taking advantage of the situation, be it Hamas, be it Hezbollah, or Iran, anyone can take advantage of the present situation. So what’s your take on the present situation in Europe? Do you think things could worsen? And what is Russia trying to do at this stage?
Chellaney: Biden’s legacy is to leave a mess in Ukraine for a successor, Donald Trump. Today, Russia has momentum on the battlefield. Russian forces are advancing, even if incrementally, they’re getting territory. As a result, Western powers have convinced Ukraine now to shift to a defence only strategy. A defence-only strategy focused on preventing further territorial losses rather than seeking to reclaim lost territories.
Biden’s supply of anti-personal land mines seeks to bolster such defensive defence on the part of Ukraine. But there’s also a second aspect that Biden has done recently, which is to provide an offensive go-ahead to Ukraine to use American-supplied long-range missiles to strike targets inside Russia. And this has been followed by Britain and France providing a similar go-ahead to Ukraine. The problem is that these long-range missiles depend on US navigational data and other satellite reconnaissance technology that Ukraine lacks. So, in effect, when Ukraine launches any such missile, it’s the Western powers that control the flight mission as well as the targeting.
From the Russian perspective, this means that NATO forces are directly involved in this war. So this creates escalation and counter-escalation. And we’re seeing how, in response to the Biden go-ahead, Russia has stepped up missile and drone attacks on Ukraine, targeting its energy infrastructure. The most recent missile and drone blitz caused substantial damage to Ukrainian energy infrastructure across much of the country. A number of cities were without power after those strikes. And we should not forget that winter has already set in and if such strikes continue, this will cause a lot of havoc in Ukraine. Therefore, Trump’s pledge to end the war seems quite sensible given the fact that according to the latest opinion survey, a majority of Ukrainians also favour an end to the war.
Q: Do you think President Zelenskyy and his team would like some sort of negotiation and settlement before the Trump administration takes control?
Vorozhbyt: We once more need to stress the point that Zelenskyy and his administration are representatives of the people of Ukraine. And when we go back to the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the US administration gave us three days, one week or so. But Ukraine now stands for almost three years. And it stands because of the people and because of the cause of people. And this is probably the most important thing you need to understand.
What Russia does now is, it targets energy infrastructure also civilian infrastructure. The important point to stress here over the last strikes, for example is it was aimed on to the substations of the nuclear power stations, which frankly is a very dangerous thing because it not only brings trouble to Ukrainians for example, but it is also dangerous to the nuclear stations themselves because these substations, they support the working of the nuclear power stations. Without the cooling engines, there could be a major event which will influence not only Ukraine, but also the whole part of the world here.
So, for Ukraine, this war is not only about defending its territory, but defending its identity. And this is what Russia is targeting by killing people or trying to re-study people on the territories it occupied in Ukraine.
Watch the accompanying video for the entire discussion.
