Russia not planning any military offensives in near future, official says

Russia isn’t planning any further military offensives into Ukraine in the near future, MP Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, told Ukrainian television on Aug. 9. “Putin has understood that acquiring more Ukrainian territory won’t lead to achieving results,” he said. “Putin’s strategy is to negotiate the return of Donbas with Ukraine under the conditions that returns Donbas, and we back away from Crimea forever. He doesn’t plan to occupy anything else.”

Gerashchenko was responding to a question on news reports on Russian repositioning of missile launchers. Also, Russian military hardware has been clustered in northern Crimea and the city of Dzhankoy has been surrounded by tanks and other hardware. In addition, Minsk negotiator Yevhen Marchuk said Russia’s recent accumulation of arms in Donbas and Crimea is intended to disrupt the celebration of 25 years of Ukrainian independence on Aug. 24.

Zenon Zawada: Gerashchenko’s assessment is on target. The main priority of the Russian government is working to ensure that the West drops the Crimean issue altogether, which could be aided with the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president. Should that occur, we expect the current Ukrainian government to demonstrate resistance on a legal and symbolic level, but largely comply with the agreements reached between Russia and the U.S. In the meantime, Putin will continue to use the conflict in Donbas as a useful bargaining chip in his negotiations with the West.

As for Marchuk’s suspicions, we don’t expect world leaders to cancel their visits to Kyiv for the commemoration of the 25-year anniversary of Ukrainian independence. We hope that the Russian president isn’t so irrational as to intensify military attacks simply to spoil the commemoration events, as Marchuk suggested.