VIENNA, December 8. /TASS/. The West is focused on administering the Ukrainian conflict rather than ending it, Eugene Finkel, professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University, has said in an interview with the Austrian newspaper Der Standard.
"The West is currently focused on managing the war [in Ukraine] rather than ending it," Finkel believes. As long as the Western countries make no decision to change something and fail to take proper action, nothing [in the situation around Ukraine] will turn for the better."
"If things stay the way they are now, the war will go on and on. People will keep dying and most refugees will not be able to return home. Ukraine will not be restored," the expert concluded.
The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valery Zaluzhny, told the British magazine The Economist in early November that the conflict around Ukraine was stalled and that Ukrainian troops would not be able to achieve a breakthrough on the frontline. He warned of a potential years-long war of attrition.
The Ukrainian army has been conducting unsuccessful offensive attempts since early June. According to Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, Kiev has lost more than 125,000 men and over 16,000 pieces of equipment in six months. The Russian side has repeatedly emphasized that the offensive has failed, as Ukraine achieved no significant results. In recent weeks, the West and Kiev have repeatedly said that the "counter-offensive" was not successful enough and that the situation on the frontline was a stalemate for the Ukrainian side.