Not just land seizure: ISW reveals Kremlin’s real goal in Ukraine

Analysts examined a statement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in an interview on August 19. Lavrov claimed that Moscow “never talked about the need to seize any territories,” including Crimea and Donbas.

At the same time, Lavrov put forward demands that effectively deny Ukraine’s sovereignty - in particular, the repeal of laws on language and religion.

ISW analysts stress that such statements reflect the Kremlin’s true goals - to remove Ukraine’s democratically elected government and replace it with a pro-Russian one in order to gain full political control over the country.

“Considering Russia’s territorial demands separately from demands concealed by its references to ‘root causes’ obscures the reality that the Kremlin views its war demands as indivisible - the Kremlin aims to accomplish all of these goals and has shown no willingness to compromise any of them or sacrifice some for others to facilitate or complete a peace process,” the report states.

According to the analysts, the Kremlin seeks Ukraine’s demilitarization, a ban on NATO membership, and a change of government - and is prepared to pursue these aims through both military and diplomatic means.

Ultimately, the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 after eight years of failed attempts to bring the country back under its control through hybrid military campaigns dating back to 2004.

ISW notes that Russia similarly seeks to expand its control over other former Soviet states, including NATO members Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

So far, its efforts to establish influence in the Baltic states have failed. At the same time, the Kremlin has achieved far greater success in Belarus and Georgia, and is now working to strengthen its grip on Minsk in order to fully erase the notion of Belarusian independence.

Earlier, Russian leader Vladimir Putin presented a list of demands to end the war against Ukraine during his meeting with US President Donald Trump in Alaska. These demands included not only territorial concessions.

Reuters reported that Russia may agree to withdraw from part of the occupied Ukrainian territories, including areas of the Kharkiv and Sumy regions, while Ukraine would allegedly have to give up some eastern lands that Moscow failed to capture.

Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during talks with Trump, did not dismiss the idea of a possible territorial exchange. However, Zelenskyy emphasized that such decisions cannot be made without taking into account the will of the Ukrainian people.