What is Russia’s plan ‘B’ in Ukraine?
Russia appears to have abandoned for now the initial aim in its invasion of Ukraine of seizing Kyiv and ousting the Ukrainian government, but is still pressing attacks in the east and south. Even under this plan 'B' forced by Ukrainian resistance and military setbacks, Moscow has multiple aims that risk prolonging the conflict and causing yet more death and destruction.
Even with full control over the media after a series of draconian measures, President Vladimir Putin will want to report some kind of success on May 9 when Russia marks its victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.
While Russian forces appear to be moving away from Kyiv and other regions of the north, Russia is making no such move around the southeastern city of Mariupol, which has been besieged for weeks in defiance of an international outcry.
Seizing Mariupol would be a crucial step for Russia in realising its apparent aim to control territory linking the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, seized by Moscow in 2014, to Russia.
With Mariupol, Russian forces could "go north up to grasp the rest of the Donbas and have continuous control of the south of Ukraine and the coast of the Sea of Azov," Pierre Razoux, academic director of the Mediterranean Foundation for Strategic Studies, told AFP.
The longer the war grinds on, the more the Kremlin is expected to press one of its favourite tactics of seeking to divide the West between those states who want to take the hardest line against Moscow, and those with more conciliatory stances.
In a possible harbinger of strains to come, US President Joe Biden said that Putin should not remain in power but French President Emmanuel Macron retorted that such rhetoric was unhelpful.
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