According to Krijger, it completely depends on the reality of war. “If the Russians start a new offensive in the spring, that’s the reality,” he says. «But I still keep in mind that the Ukrainians will try to break through the front towards Militopol, for example. I still think the most logical scenario is that we are heading towards a situation similar to that of 1953, at the end of the Korean War: a ‘frozen conflict’.
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Not a good conclusion, says Krijger. “Then it stops at a certain point, like in Kashmir in India and Pakistan. And this is not good for the West, and certainly not for Ukraine.
Current stage
In a sense, we can speak of a frozen conflict at the moment, Krijger thinks, because little is happening, apart from some shooting from both sides. “Even if the front doesn’t move, what happened in Ramstein last week is nothing,” he continues. “The coalition of fifty countries – led by the Americans – appears ready to move forward towards a potential victory for Ukraine.”
But that very quarrel at that summit over, among other things, the delivery of Leopard 2 tanks, is framed in Russia as a “major division in the European Union,” according to former Russia correspondent Laura Starink of the NRC. “There is that divide, but not as big as the Russians are hoping for,” she says. “For Putin there is no turning back, this is the problem of this war. He played too much and the Kremlin elite gradually became convinced of this ».
Take a step back
However, Putin will not step back a single step, thinks Starink. “And he certainly won’t go back to the pre-Crimean borders, as Ukraine wants now,” he continues. “This is a complete failure for Putin, especially for Crimea. This only means that he can only carry on the war, and then it will be a war of attrition.’
And by exhaustion, Starink mostly refers to the available equipment. “They get over it pretty quickly,” he says. “But not yet by their men. This is what makes war so terribly dark and creepy. The Russians have always had enough cannon fodder, as has been seen even since the Second World War».
Victory
But where Putin won’t step back, Putin most likely won’t step forward either. While victories come in many forms, Starink knows it too. “Even analysts quite often say it doesn’t really matter, because Putin can basically frame anything as a victory,” he continues. Suppose the Ukrainians win and push the Russians back across the border, Putin can still say that he is defending Russia from an attack by NATO and the rest of the world. The Russians will accept it and happily go home. It depends on how much you can manipulate, and the Russians are pretty good at that.”