ISW: ‘Russian authorities plan to prepare children for military service’

Russian authorities plan to prepare children for military service, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote on its website.

According to ISW, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intent toward Ukraine has not changed and likely never will.

Russia will use any territory it keeps in Ukraine to stage future attacks:

"Despite Western assumptions, Putin has never been content with the territorial gains he made in Ukraine in 2014 because control of Ukraine, not its territory, has been his goal. Putin has tried to gain control over Ukraine in increasingly extreme ways: by trying to dominate Ukraine’s politics in the 2000s and early 2010s; via military intervention in 2014 and the manipulative peace frameworks that followed. He failed. He then resorted to a full-scale invasion in 2022, including a genocidal campaign to eradicate Ukrainian identity and statehood—an effort he is unlikely to abandon.”

Putin is preparing Russia for a long war. He was explicit on December 7 that the "special operation” will be "lengthy.” He is likely setting conditions for additional mobilization. He is orienting the Russian defense industrial base to support a prolonged war effort; his success in that effort may be limited, but his intent has been clear. Russian authorities plan to prepare children for military service. Putin is doubling down on his maximalist objectives in Ukraine despite battlefield setbacks. Putin’s goals regarding the United States have not changed either. Putin made clear in a recent speech that he still intends to ‘collapse the Western hegemony’. Stabilizing Russia’s gains in Ukraine would provide the Kremlin with additional bandwidth to pursue this goal,” ISW said.

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