Not the occupation of Kyiv.. Military expert: This is Russia's real goal in Ukraine

Is Russia seeking to invade and seize the Ukrainian capital next spring?

This question is asked by a Western expert in military studies, and he tries to answer it in an article published by the British newspaper The Sunday Times.

Michael Clarke, visiting professor of defense studies at King's College London and distinguished researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, says - in his article in the newspaper - that the Russian army can starve the people of Kyiv and turn their city into rubble, but the Kremlin's eyes may be focused in another direction.

It is recalled that the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24 of last year began with a lightning strike on Kiev.

Although the attack failed miserably at the time, the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky and the military leadership kept sounding the alarm about an imminent major Russian attack, this time targeting the capital, which the author of the article describes as a valuable target.

Vitali Klitschko, the capital's mayor and former world heavyweight boxing champion, warned last week that "Kyiv was and remains the real target of the Russians."

Imminent attack and difficult choices

According to the article, it is believed that Russian President Vladimir Putin may attack this city in the near future, but it is unlikely that the Russian army will be able to control it, because Kiev will desperately defend itself.

The writer drew attention to the fact that Kyiv showed great readiness at the beginning of the invasion in February 2022, as its residents did a great job, so that students went down to Independence Square and made incendiary bombs, overturned heavy vehicles and used them as barricades on the roads.

According to the article, the Russian forces are certainly able this time to besiege Kiev better than they did last year, but their ability to control it is questionable.

The professor of defense studies describes Kiev, which was founded in 482, more than 650 years before Moscow, as "a historical and architectural gem in the region."

He says that the Russian army can bomb it from a distance, and reduce it to rubble, as it did in Mariupol (eastern Ukraine), which it continued to bomb for about 3 months, even though the country's capital is 4 times larger in terms of area.

He also believes that the Russians may choose - instead - to impose a siege on Kyiv, put pressure on it and starve its 3 million people to force it to surrender.

The Russian leadership may choose another scenario, invading the city with tens of thousands of its ground forces and trying to occupy it after it has turned into ruins, according to the words of the Sunday Times article.

The writer points out that all of the aforementioned options are not a good strategy for Moscow, and Putin will be very lucky if he escapes from its political repercussions inside and outside Russia if he does it.

He also believes that Moscow will not be able to cover up the suffering of the residents of the Ukrainian capital, as it did in the past in cities such as Grozny in Chechnya, and Idlib and Aleppo in Syria.

Moscow's real goal

If this is the case, then why is Russia trying to reach Kiev?

It is likely that the next Russian attack will focus on trying to seize the rest of the Donbass region, strengthening the land bridge and extending it to reach the Crimea, and perhaps seeking again to occupy the coasts of Ukraine on the Black Sea.

And he believes that the Russian army may push its forces from the Dnipro River to the outskirts of Kiev to allow the way to annex all the Ukrainian lands located on the eastern bank of the river, leaving the West Bank lands belonging to what remains of Ukraine "locked and unviable and run from an encircled capital."

To achieve any of these goals, the writer says that it would be logical from a military point of view for Russia to use large numbers of its newly increased and mobilized forces - despite their poor training and equipment - to fight simultaneous battles to exhaust the Ukrainian forces on many fronts.

The article goes on to say that renewed attacks across Ukraine's eastern border towards Kharkiv, an advance from Crimea north again beyond Zaporozhye to the Dnipro, and a new amphibious assault on Odessa serve the main effort directed at controlling Donbass.

There is no doubt that Russia's pressure in the short term by encircling Kiev will force the Ukrainians to transfer significant numbers of its forces from other fronts to defend their country's capital, according to the author.

Therefore, the writer believes that Moscow's goal is not to invade and destroy Kiev, but to put pressure on it to get it to enter into negotiations in the future that allow Russia to keep the Ukrainian regions that its forces control.

He wonders if the Russians will be bold enough to try to force their way to Kyiv next spring, and whether the Ukrainians will be able to hold out and defend their capital.

The article concludes that the Ukrainians have the capabilities that enable them to thwart the Russian plans, and that they can do so by initiating a strategic attack before the Russians launch the attack they are planning for in the spring.