US intelligence expects the current pace of fighting in Ukraine, which has slowed sharply, to continue in the coming months and sees no signs of weakening in Ukraine’s resolve to resist, the director of the U.S. said on Saturday, December 3, 2022. US National Intelligence.
“We are already seeing a slowdown in the conflict and we expect it to continue in the coming months”April Haines explained during the annual Reagan National Defense forum.
According to her, both the Ukrainians and the Russians should try to prepare for a new counter-offensive after the winter by renewing their equipment and resupplying.
“We are quite skeptical about how ready the Russians will be. I am more optimistic for the Ukrainians. »
April Haines said the Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure were aimed in part at undermining Ukrainians’ resolve to resist, adding: “We see no evidence that (their resolve) has been undermined at this time”.
Director of National Intelligence says Russian President Vladimir Putin’s political goals in Ukraine don’t appear to have changed, but US intelligence officials believe he may be willing to scale back his military goals in the near term “temporarily, with the idea that he might reconsider this decision later”.
Peace talks on Russian terms
The Kremlin said on Saturday December 3, 2022 that peace talks with the West could only enter an effective phase if Moscow’s authority over the Ukrainian territories it has annexed since the conflict began is recognized, even then that Russian forces they were driven out of these regions by the counter-offensive of the Ukrainian army.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the US government’s refusal to recognize “New Territories” as part of Russia “significantly complicates the search for common ground”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions in September, although Russian forces did not fully control these territories at the time. And the Russian army has continued to lose ground in these regions it now claims.
Russian forces have withdrawn from Kherson, the first major city captured by Russia since it launched the invasion in late February last month. Kherson is the capital of a southern Ukrainian region known as Kherson Oblast, which is one of four territories illegally annexed by Putin. Ukraine regained control of more than half of the territory occupied by Russia after the invasion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has made it clear he will not accept any peace deal that would see Kiev cede territory to Russia. Zelenskyy cited the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity as a condition for the start of talks with Russia.
The essential United States
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said on Saturday December 3, 2022 that the war in Ukraine shows that Europe is too dependent on the United States for its security.
“I have to be brutally honest with you, Europe is not strong enough right now”, Marin said during a talk to a think tank in Sydney. “We would be in trouble without the United States. »
And to add: “The United States has provided a lot of weapons, a lot of financial aid, a lot of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and Europe is still not strong enough. We need to make sure we build these capabilities into European defence. »
The United States has provided Ukraine with far more security aid than any other country: some $19.1 billion since Russia launched its invasion in late February.
Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine marks the first major conflict in Europe since World War II and has sparked more pressing discussions about European security and the continent’s dependence on the United States. It also pushed Finland and Sweden – two historically neutral or militarily non-aligned countries – to join NATO (the membership process is ongoing).
