Putin's Ukraine Ambitions Will Have to Be 'Adjusted'—Crimea Chief

Russian President Vladimir Putin's grand ambitions to "demilitarize" Ukraine may require an adjustment, according to the head of the Moscow-installed occupation authority in Crimea, after more than a year of tough fighting that has achieved few of the Kremlin's initial goals.

Sergey Aksenov—appointed head of occupied Crimea after its seizure by Moscow's "little green men" in 2014—told the Crimea 24 television channel that the rapidly developing situation at the front in southern and eastern Ukraine will dictate any re-evaluation of Russian war goals.

"The situation changes daily," Aksenov said, as quoted by The Moscow Times. "I think that still the goals will be adjusted in one way or another, I personally have no doubt," he added.

Putin launched his February 2022 invasion vowing to "demilitarize" and "de-Nazify" Ukraine. These vague goals were built on a flawed foundation of propagandized history and, reportedly, years of misleading briefings from Russia's security services and military hierarchy.

Many observers feared a Russian offensive to complete the partial occupation of the eastern Donbas region, but few expected the Kremlin to be bold—or reckless—enough to make a drive for Kyiv, despite repeated U.S. intelligence warnings that Putin had prepared for full-scale war.

In less than a month, Moscow's war plans were in tatters. Successive battlefield defeats followed, and now Ukraine's long-planned counteroffensive threatens to force the Kremlin into another humiliating retreat in the south or east of the country, where Russian troops have been able to hold some 20 percent of Ukraine's internationally recognized territory.

Putin has claimed to have annexed four partially occupied Ukrainian regions—Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk. In all four, Russian troops have spent months preparing defenses for an expected Ukrainian counterattack. In Donetsk, Russian troops—led by Wagner Group mercenaries—are thought to have sustained staggering losses in taking the devastated city of Bakhmut.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has been training fresh troops and integrating NATO weapons systems in preparation for its nascent push. At the political level, Moscow's war has supercharged Kyiv's long-held NATO and European Union membership ambitions. If Putin's goal were to reverse Ukraine's decades-long political and cultural westward shift, it has backfired spectacularly.

Kyiv has also made no secret of its intention to liberate Crimea, the annexation of which began a new hot phase in a Kyiv-Moscow struggle stretching back to at least the turn of the century. Though some Western officials have urged Ukrainian leaders to temper their ambitions, President Volodymyr Zelensky and his top officials have said there can be no end to the war while Crimea remains Russian.

Aksenov told Crimea 24 that the Kremlin's failure to implement its original goals might create a more difficult strategic situation in the future. A militarized Ukraine in NATO and the EU, Aksenov said, will mean "it will be even more difficult for us to say something, build something."

Asked where the eventual Russian-Ukrainian border would be drawn, Aksenov urged observers to be patient.

Newsweek has contacted the Russian foreign ministry for comment.