REUTERS

For Russia, the war in the Donbas is a way to keep dealing with the issues related to its relation with the Western coalition, so Moscow does not intend to cease it, military expert Alexey Arestovich says.

In his comment to Apostrophe, Arestovich has noted that Russia seeks to weaken Ukraine.

"The process in political technologies is called 'Finlandization'. That is, making [Ukraine] a dependent country with a weak army that would drop the idea of confrontation and, in the best case scenario, provide a guarantee of not joining the EU and NATO," he said.

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"And since it is difficult to do this directly, it is necessary to return [to Ukraine] these so-called 'republics', giving them the opportunity to influence domestic policy, and through this, external policies as well. That's because Russia's main short-term goal is to create conditions to make impossible Ukraine’s accession to the EU and NATO. They've been persistently moving toward its implementation," the expert explained.

In his opinion, some Ukrainian politicians are "playing along this tune", but even they "will understand in 18 months that it's impossible to reach an agreement with Russia."

"And if they try to negotiate through concessions, they will simply be torn apart by people who fought in this war and suffered from it," Arestovich is sure.