Russia does not consider its intervention in Ukraine a war, but rather a 'special military operation', this due to the stated aims which are to secure the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, ensure Ukraine does not join NATO and to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine, but importantly not to occupy Ukraine in its entirety.
There can be no possible doubt that Russia will remove all existing Ukrainian military personnel from the Donbass. This region which for eight years now has been the subject of daily attacks by the Ukrainian army and extremist militant forces.
Russia will then without doubt secure the region from any possible ground attack by Ukrainian military forces of any kind.
This I would maintain is beyond question at this point.
However, I fear this will not by any means signal the end of hostilities.
There is too much to gain for western powers in prolonging the agony for the people of the Donbass and for Russia.
Boris Johnson remarked in the last few days that the 'war' might last till the end of 2023. I believe this remark is significant in respect of what I say above. Though for Russia, the primary goals of its intervention will have been accomplished and it can be said that the operation is complete, I believe we will see the western powers having other ideas.
I expect at the very least that acts of subversion will almost certainly occur within the Donbass and quite possibly major atrocities involving the deaths of many civilians. I cannot see how Russia and the self-defence units of the two republics there can avoid this as it will be impossible to account for everyone there with total certainty.
In addition I would expect major artillery or other strikes within the Donbass from over what will become the new border with what is left of Ukraine. The howitzers that the USA is supplying to Kiev will, I believe, be used to devastating effect along with whatever other weaponry including drones the Kiev authorities get their hands on.
Driving all this forcefully will be the western powers, chief among them the USA and UK but with their European allies assisting. There is to be no respite for Russia or the people of the Donbass I fear.
The only factor which may have some effect in making the Ukrainians and their backers exert a little caution is the likelihood (almost certainty) of civilian casualties. However, as I observed for myself in scrutinising the situation intently in the Donbass from 2014 onward, the heavy civilian casualties throughout this period which arose from Ukrainian attacks were never, not even once to my knowledge, reported in the West, not in any specific form at any rate, no attribution as to who had caused these deaths was given. I would expect similar reporting to occur once again.
No matter how in charge of the Donbass Russia becomes, no matter how many S-400 defence systems it installs or military personnel it deploys there I suspect nothing will stop the occasional (and perhaps much more than occasional) attack (both internal and initiated externally) to occur.
The USA requires this. It may just possibly have planned this all along, yes, even from the very beginning, many years beforehand as the ideal way to drain Russia of its resources and financial stability with a view ultimately of removing its current president and system of governance and replacing both, before moving on to China and Taiwan.
However, even if the above is not the case and the present crisis was only as a result of Russia seeking these changes in an attack unexpected and unplanned for by the USA, the goal now of the U.S. and its allies is clearly to keep the conflict going as long as possible quite irrespective of any Russian decision that its special military operation is complete.
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