Ukraine’s significant counteroffensive can help reduce Putin's willingness to continue war - ISW

If Ukraine, with the support of its partners, demonstrates the ability to conduct significant counteroffensive operations, it can help persuade the Russian regime to end the war.

This is said in a report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), according to Ukrinform.

“Ukraine's partners can help Ukraine reduce Putin's willingness to continue to wage endless war in pursuit of Ukraine's destruction by helping Ukraine conduct significant counteroffensive operations that liberate Ukrainian territory and invalidate Putin's assumptions about what Russia can achieve in Ukraine by force,” the report says.

As noted, Putin retains his objective of entirely destroying Ukrainian statehood and identity, and all his objectives for territorial conquest in Ukraine are a means to this end. “Russian President Vladimir Putin's theory of victory that Russia will be able to make creeping advances in Ukraine indefinitely will incentivize Putin to protract the war and harden Putin's commitment to destroying Ukrainian statehood,” the report says.

According to analysts, the West must hasten to provide Ukraine the support it needs to conduct counteroffensive operations to invalidate Putin's theory of victory and avoid protracting the war more than necessary to secure a peace acceptable to Ukraine and its partners.

Earlier, ISW analyzed the "creeping advances" of Russian troops in the Toretsk sector.