Elites close to the Russian president say they don’t yet see Putin changing his current course.

Putin wants to seize Ukraine / photo REUTERS

Some members of Putin’s elite in government and state-owned enterprises believe that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a catastrophic mistake that would set the country back years.

This is reported  by Bloomberg  , citing a dozen interlocutors aware of the situation.

Elites close to the Russian president say they don’t yet see Putin changing his current course.

Putin dismissed attempts by other officials to warn him of the catastrophic economic and political consequences looming over the country as a result of Western sanctions.

Some said they increasingly share the fear voiced by US intelligence officials that Putin may turn to limited use of nuclear weapons if he faces the failure of a campaign that he sees as his historic mission.

At the same time, some top insiders have come to believe that Putin’s drive to continue the invasion threatens Russia with years of isolation and heightened tensions that will hurt its economy, compromise its security, and shatter its global influence.

“The president remains confident that the public is behind him, and Russians are willing to endure hardship for the sake of his vision of national greatness,” the article says.

Putin is determined to keep fighting even if the Kremlin has had to scale back its ambitions from a quick, massive takeover of much of the country to a grueling battle over the Donbas region to the east. According to this view, settling for less would leave Russia hopelessly vulnerable and weak in the face of the threat that the US and its allies see.

Earlier it was reported that in the east the Ukrainian army is waiting for powerful clashes with Russian forces not only in the Donbass, but also in Kharkov.

The Russian occupiers want to reach the administrative borders of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions  before May 9 , and also to keep the “land corridor” to the occupied Crimea.

(C)UNIAN 2022