MOSCOW, April 18. /TASS/. Russia is interested in the quickest completion of its special operation in Ukraine but only after the whole of Donbass is liberated and Moscow and Kiev will step up their talks after that, experts polled by TASS said on Monday.
The latest face-to-face round of Russian-Ukrainian talks was held in Istanbul on March 29. Moscow positively assessed its results as a whole, primarily because Kiev’s representatives provided for the first time written proposals on settling the situation. However, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on April 12 that the negotiating process had again come to a deadlock because the Ukrainian side had departed from the agreed positions.
"Russia is interested in implementing the tasks that have been set and that is why the military operation will continue in the coming weeks. Russia will seek to inflict maximum military defeat on Ukraine in Donbass, following which the sides, I believe, will return to the negotiating process," Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies of the Higher School of Economics National Research University, expert of the Valdai International Discussion Club Dmitry Suslov told TASS.
Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council Andrey Kortunov believes that this is just one of possible scenarios and the sides can still achieve a breakthrough at the talks.
"Either we will achieve some serious progress in the negotiating process already in the immediate future, until the end of the month and then some light will appear at the end of the tunnel. Or this scenario will fail and then the sides will most likely have to go at least through another cycle of escalation and return to the negotiating table already after new clashes, first of all, on Donbass territory," the expert pointed out.
In this case, the active negotiating process will resume but already in May, Kortunov said.
"And then it will be possible to make forecasts on the completion of the active phase of the conflict," he added.
West will attempt to make conflict drag on
The United States and some European countries want to make the conflict in Ukraine drag on as long as possible and do not even conceal that, Suslov said. As the expert pointed out, the West "will try to maximally obstruct and slow Russia’s military victory in Donbass."
"It is perfectly clear that the West wants to make the conflict linger on as long as possible to inflict maximum damage on Russia," the expert said.
Western countries are interested in the exhaustion of Moscow’s military resources and in damage on its economy and also in its political weakening, he explained. This can be seen, in particular, in ramped-up deliveries of armaments, including heavy weapons, to Kiev and in statements that the West "may not recognize the accords that Moscow and Kiev may reach and may not recognize Ukraine’s new borders without Crimea and Donbass," Suslov specified.
Other experts also draw attention to the deliveries of Western weapons. In particular, Associate Professor of the Chair of Political Theory at the MGIMO University Kirill Koktysh pointed out that the military operation "will proceed much faster thanks to the elimination of the larger part of the military hardware that Ukraine operated" "but much depends on whether the channels of the delivery of armaments from NATO countries will be cut off".