Putin Preparing Russians for 10 Years of Ukraine War: ISW

Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing his country for the possibility that the war in Ukraine could last another 10 years, a U.S.-based think tank has said.

More than two years into the war launched by Putin in February 2022, Moscow has been raising the prospect of peace talks with Ukraine, demanding that the war-torn country cede territory occupied by Russian forces.

In its latest analysis of the conflict in Ukraine on Wednesday, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) focused on an interview given by Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's former president and prime minister, to newspaper Argumenty I Fakty, as well as on the reception of his statements by pro-Kremlin media.

In the interview, published late on Tuesday, Medvedev, now deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, claimed that "it is not for nothing" that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg expressed hope that Ukraine could join the military alliance within the next 10 years.

"That is, never," said Medvedev, adding that by 2034, "none of the leaders of the current NATO countries will simply be in their posts, and some will not even be in this world."

"It is quite possible that the notorious country 404 will not exist either," he said.

"Country 404" is a "derogative use of the 404 computer 'error' code meant to suggest that Ukraine is not a real state," said the ISW.

"Russian state news outlets editorialized comments by Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev and claimed that he said that the Ukrainian state will no longer exist by 2034, likely to support the Kremlin's efforts to prepare the Russian public for a long war in Ukraine while promising that Russia will complete its objective to destroy Ukrainian statehood within a decade," the think tank said.

While Medvedev did not explicitly say that Ukraine will cease to exist by 2034, the ISW pointed out, several outlets, "including Kremlin newswire TASS," ran with such headlines as "Medvedev Admitted that Ukraine Will No Longer Exist in 2034" and "Medvedev Predicted the Disappearance of Ukraine by 2034."

Newsweek has contacted the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministries via email.

The ISW said Medvedev's suggestion that Russia will be able to "destroy Ukraine" by 2034 is "a promise to the Russian public that Russia will be able to win the war and achieve its objective to destroy Ukrainian statehood within a decade."

This narrative "sets careful information conditions and societal expectations for a war that will last another decade, but one that will end with Russia's desired 'victory,'" the think tank said.

It also undermines recent attempts by Kremlin officials to convey that Russia is open to holding peace talks with Ukraine to bring an end to the war, and "emphasizes that the Kremlin's only desired end-state for the war is the complete destruction of the Ukrainian state and people."

The Kremlin has specified a few conditions Russia considers nonnegotiable, including that Ukraine must accept the September 2022 annexation of four of its regions—Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia—following referendums called by Putin that were deemed illegal by the international community.

On June 14, Putin said Ukraine must also renounce any plans to join the NATO military alliance.

Ukraine has said that any peace deal must invalidate the September 2022 annexations of its territory, as well as that of the Crimean Peninsula, which Putin claimed in 2014.

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