MOSCOW, Russia – February 21 (ONLINE) Russian defence analyst Pavel Felgenhauer on Tuesday predicted that after 12 months of bloody battles between Russia and Ukraine, “the intensity of the fighting is too high for it to be maintained for long”.
In an interview with Al Jazeera TV, the analyst said he is unable to predict who however will win the war.
“We cannot totally predict everything. But I believe that an escalation right now is imminent. An escalation in the fighting; everyone is talking about a Russian offensive. Western military commanders in Brussels are also talking about how the Ukrainians should go on the offensive,” he told Al Jazeera.
“General Mark Milley [Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff], who a year ago was talking about how Kyiv could fall in couple of days, now says that Russia has lost strategically, operationally and tactically, and Ukraine should sort of go out to finish them off,” he said.
Talking about the impacts of war on Russian economy, the analyst said his country was facing severe economic depression. “Russia, of course right now, has very serious financial problems with a deficit that’s being financed by printing money. It has problems on the battlefield at the same time.”
Talking about the possible end to Russia-Ukraine war, Felgenhauer said: “There was a military reason — to prevent Western missiles appearing in Ukraine for a direct strike on Moscow.
There was a geopolitical reason — to reunite the Russian people, assuming that Ukrainians are Russian people, and to defy the West and actually undermine Western unity.”
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