Russia’s long and brutal assault on Mariupol, which has left most of the Ukrainian Black Sea port city in ruins, was worth the cost, according to a Russian political analyst speaking on Moscow’s Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda last night. “Everything is clear with Mariupol,” the analyst and magazine editor, Kirill Benediktov, told a prominent Russian radio host and journalist, Sergei Mardan. “The cost was worth it. This is a city that should have been taken back in 2014 — the key to the land corridor to the Crimea.”In a wide-ranging interview about possible scenarios for the war in Ukraine — which the outlet still refers to as a “special operation” — no mention was made of the multiple thousands of civilian casualties in the Mariupol area nor of the estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters and civilians holed up in the city’s besieged Azovstal steel plant, a last stand of resistance to Russian bombardment.The conversation was noteworthy not just for the glaring insensitivities and outright omissions, but for clues as to what Vladimir Putin could be thinking for a possible endgame in Ukraine. While technically privately owned, the popular Komsomolskaya Pravda has close links with Russian energy conglomerate Gazprom and is closely aligned politically with the Kremlin. Mr. Benediktov linked the conquest of Mariupol with Russian-occupied Kherson, saying that “its value is that it opens the road to Mykolaiv and Odessa — their loss cuts off Ukraine from the sea, and gives us a corridor to Transnistria.” In recent weeks tensions have brewed over Transnistria, a Russian-speaking enclave sandwiched between Moldova, to which it formally belongs, and Ukraine. Attacks in the breakaway micro-state for which no one has claimed responsibility could point to Russian false flag operations that attempt to drag that region into war. Some sources have even speculated that Moscow could try to use Transnistria, where Russian troops are already stationed, as a staging area for an invasion of Moldova. However, in the interview Mr. Benediktov proffered that Russia “will take control of most of Ukraine, with the exception of the western regions.”A Farewell to Arms?Mr. Benediktov said that Ukraine “is just a springboard for the war between the West and Russia,” and he pointed to a change in President Biden’s rhetoric as a sign that Mr. Putin may be able to solidify some territorial gains in the east, meaning the Donbas. According to him, Mr. Biden has said that NATO is sending Mr. Putin the unmistakable signal that he would never be able to subjugate “the whole of Ukraine.” Using some reverse Kremlinology, the Russian pundit wagers that the West should bank on a limited Russian military victory in eastern Ukraine, the loss of some territory there not being “critical” to its strategic interests, which include “weaking” Russia. He also warned his Russian audience that the West is “turning western Ukraine into a fortress,” and that is where the weapons shipments may come into play.While it is no secret that Western weapons for Ukraine’s military are entering the country from points west, notably Poland, Mr. Benediktov claimed that “we cannot trace the fate of the deliveries several hours after the weapons reach Ukraine.” In the same breath he said that “no one in the U.S. wants their weapons to suddenly surface somewhere in the Middle East [and be used] against the same Americans.” If that seems like a cryptic statement, well, welcome to Ukraine circa 2022. A report in Le Monde undercuts the Russian’s assessment, to a degree. According to the French newspaper, at least $6 billion of Washington’s $40 billion assistance package to Ukraine will go to reinforcing Ukraine with armored vehicles and anti-aircraft defenses. That is the equivalent of the annual Ukrainian defense budget, the newspaper reports. A French military source says that the Ukrainians are currently “consuming” in a single day the equivalent of 10 days’ worth of Western arms deliveries.Curiously, the newspaper casts doubt on America’s ability to deliver to Ukraine as many weapons as it promises. U.S. Army stocks are not infinitely expandable, it says, and like those of their European counterparts they are subject to pressures in terms of shortages of microprocessors and other elements. Yet nobody ever said that building a fortress could be done without some serious sweat and uncertainty — if indeed a fortress is being built. Russian Casualties Climb — in RussiaIs Ukraine taking a page out of the Kremlin’s decades-old war-of-attrition playbook? Judging from remarks by the governor of Russia’s Belgorod Oblast, signs are pointing in that direction. Vyacheslav Gladkov claimed that alleged shelling by Ukraine overnight has left one Russian dead and seven injured. The Moscow Times reported that Mr. Gladkov accused Ukraine of targeting the village of Solokhi, adding that 17 houses and six cars were partially destroyed. The governor said it was the “most difficult situation” in the region since Mr. Putin sent troops into Ukraine in late February.This would not be the first instance of an attack on the southern Russian region to come from Ukrainian territory: In April Mr. Gladkov said Ukrainian helicopters carried out a strike on a fuel storage facility in Belgorod. With respect to the accusations made by the Russian official today, Ukrainian authorities had yet to issue a response.
