Arestovic predicts how the war will subside by May 9th and what will happen next

The active phase of the war in Ukraine may subside in about two or three weeks, by May 9. After that, Russia will probably periodically try to advance until October, but everything will depend on the effect of sanctions and Western aid to Ukraine.

This was stated by Alexei Arestovich, adviser to the Ukrainian president, reports the Ukrainian newspaper “Observer”. According to him, in the coming weeks Russia will announce to its citizens about “some kind of interim victory”.

After two, three weeks maximum, the active phase (of the military action) will disappear. By May 9, they will declare some interim victories, say that the task has been accomplished by proposing negotiations. Then they start shouting loudly, that they defended the people of Donbass and never had anything against Ukraine, forgetting their words that they wanted to denazify us in 72 hours, “Arestovich said.

He is uncertain whether the Ukrainian side will negotiate, as the people insist on the destruction and expulsion of Russian troops by military means. In addition, Ukraine maintains a firm position with which the Russian Federation may disagree.

“And if it doesn’t, it will be a positional war – with artillery strikes, raids by special forces, small and tactical. Russia will try to accumulate more reserves so that it can periodically launch a semi-attack,” the adviser explained.

According to him, in such a scenario, the aggressor country will try to launch a new offensive around August, but then the operation will be smaller in scale, Arestovic said.

“If this cycle fails, they will try to gain more strength, there will be new experience sometime in October. And then it all depends on how the sanctions will work, whether new ones will be introduced and how Western aid will be distributed to Ukraine. “It can last until the New Year,” he said.

The adviser to the Ukrainian president clarified that this would no longer be an active war, but rather a positional war with rare, sporadic attempts to take positions on the front line.

Arestovich explains that Kyiv’s task in the war is at least to reach the positions that were until February 23.

“As a maximum – to completely liberate the whole territory. But we understand very well that this is impossible,” he added.

According to Arestovich, the issue of Donbass and Crimea will be resolved by political and diplomatic means, as the offensive there requires much more equipment – it is unclear whether the West will be able to provide it.

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