Swedish Prime Minister from 1991 to 1994 and Foreign Minister from 2006 to 2014, Carl Bild, tells SVT Agenda that there is no doubt that Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing to escalate the war in Ukraine.
He believes the war will continue as long as Putin is in power.
– Putin wants to crush and control Ukraine. He bonded so hard. It’s life or death for him, Bildt says in the broadcast.
Adds:
– Putin will escalate the war until it collapses. He sent his own forces believing he could quickly conquer the Ukraine. He has failed. He is now creating a partially new Russian army—he has mobilized hundreds of thousands of them—to be able to resume an offensive against Ukraine, he says.
Both the think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and several international media this week discussed possible Russian plans for a new major offensive against Kiev in the winter months.
FORMER PRIME MINISTER: Carl Bild. Photo: Sören Andersson / NTB
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“prolonged process”
Putin recently said that the war in Ukraine could be a protracted process, while insisting that the invasion has produced results.
– Of course, this could be a long process, Putin said when he attended a televised meeting of the so-called Kremlin Human Rights Council in early December.
He added that the new areas that Russian authorities say they have annexed in Ukraine are a “major achievement”. The Russian authorities still call the war in Ukraine a special military operation.
150,000 deployed
According to Putin, half of the Russians who were recalled in connection with the September mobilization – 150,000 soldiers – are now deployed in Ukraine.
– Of the 300,000 mobilized fighters, our men, defenders of the fatherland, 150,000 are in the operational area, Putin said.
Some in the West have accused Moscow of “covert” mobilization, with reports of Russian prisoners forced to fight in Ukraine.
