russia says it's ready for a prolonged
conflict in ukraine as its troops
continue to make slow progress in the
donbass region and the east of the
country the ukrainian defense ministry
says the offensive was in its most
active phase moscow said it would
continue until all of its objectives had
been met the city of sevagonitsk is
almost encircled by russian forces
neighbouring towns and villages are
being heavily shelled as well let's take
you live to vienna in austria we're
joined by nikolai petrov a senior
research fellow on the russia and
eurasia program at chatham house in
london and professor at the high school
of economics in moscow good to have you
with us for your perspective nikolai are
we in a new phase of the war
i think that
russian military plan did change and now
we're switching to
uh the war of attrition uh positioning
war uh when uh uh russian uh leadership
is waiting for
negative consequences of the war
directly being failed by uh ukrainians
in order to change their public mind and
make it easier to make any
concessions
but having said for weeks that the
russians were on the back foot does it
seem that they now definitely have the
upper hand in donbass
i think that uh they are closer to the
task uh proclaimed uh to restore borders
of uh self-proclaimed donetsk and
luhansk
republics to administrative borders of
ukrainian regions but what i think is
even more important it's the fact that
russian troops now do control the coast
of the sea of azov and part of the coast
of the black sea uh cutting off ukraine
from
the sea
how are ukrainians in these getting
their weapons how are the supply lines
well i think it works it works well but
uh one should not wait for any uh
immediate changes and if russian troops
will switch to defensive in order to
keep those territories which are already
under their control i think it will be
very complicated for the ukrainian army
to take these territories back because
what are the tactics of the russians in
donbass is it their sort of usual
playbook of encircling towns and then
bombarding them
uh well i think uh the situation in
donbass
does show
how complicated uh is
to get control over territories if the
other side is well prepared for the uh
defense so far astronomy is trying to
get all territories which uh the parts
of uh donetsk and luhansk regions of
ukraine but even this task is hardly
possible
do you believe that ultimately president
zielenski and ukraine will have to give
up
part of all of the donbass region
uh i am afraid uh that uh
the uh well gaining back control over
all territories of ukraine will take a
lot of time and it's hardly uh probable
that it will happen uh in a short while
that's why i think
uh that ceasefire which can help to stop
uh this huge uh cruel uh and very
painful war uh will be achieved and
later perhaps not even this year but
later ukraine will manage to
restore its territorial integrity
nikolai petrov thank you for joining us
uh with your thoughts your analysis from
vienna