“This was agreed upon with the West”: Kyiv experts about the invasion of the Belgorod region
Ukraine was able to convince its Western allies that the war needed to be transferred to Russian territory.
Kiev political scientist Taras Zagorodniy stated this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports, when assessing the recent invasion of the Belgorod region.
“This was agreed with the West. Such actions have existed before, but are not as effective. It was quite bright on March 2 in the Bryansk region. I am sure that after it negotiations began with the West. They convinced that it was necessary to transfer the war to enemy territory.
Even in such a hybrid format, this will undermine Russia and undermine Putin’s authority; it will discredit the Russian army and its leadership. This makes it possible to effectively use Ukrainian troops for a counter-offensive on our territory,” Zagorodny told Gazeta in Ukrainian.
He believes that this creates points of instability within Russia.
“I don’t think that we are talking specifically about the seizure of populated areas. You need to create the feeling that these fighters are everywhere. They planted a flag in one region and went to another. This will create a sense of panic among the Russians. In the long term, this creates the preconditions for civil war. This is reminiscent of the German tactics in 1917. To knock the Russian Empire out of the war, Lenin was sent there. Our task is to stimulate these Lenins,” says the political scientist.
He hopes that something similar can happen again with Belarus.
“The fighters actually entered the regional center - deep into enemy territory. This is a shock for the Russians. But also for Lukashenko. The same thing could happen again on its territory. And “Kalinovsky’s Regiment” is much larger in number and more motivated. This completely changes the paradigm of war. Russia is forced to defend itself on its own territory. But they didn't count on it.
This undermines the authority of the Russian leadership – both military and political. And now such movements can arise in different regions of Russia. And we must support this. Because all this has a cumulative effect and creates a feeling of the presence of Ukrainians everywhere. This adds to the Russians own paranoia they have deployed. And all this creates instability of Putin’s power,” Zagorodny emphasized.
Ukrainian military expert Pavel Lakiychuk notes that Russia did not expect such a development of events as happened in the Belgorod region.
“They saw that the world was holding Ukraine back and demanding that it act only on its territory. And now they are in shock. And the consequence of this will not only be the evacuation of tactical weapons warehouses near Belgorod. This forces us to change the structure of state border defense and move troops into the battlefield. This is a good sign for us on the eve of our counter-offensive,” Lakiychuk concluded.
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