MOSCOW, Russia
\nRussian defence analyst Pavel Felgenhauer on Tuesday predicted that after 12 months of bloody battles between Russia and Ukraine, \u201cthe intensity of the fighting is too high for it to be maintained for long\u201d.
\nIn an interview with Al Jazeera TV, the analyst said he is unable to predict who however will win the war.
\n\u201cWe cannot totally predict everything. But I believe that an escalation right now is imminent. An escalation in the fighting; everyone is talking about a Russian offensive. Western military commanders in Brussels are also talking about how the Ukrainians should go on the offensive,\u201d he told Al Jazeera.
\n\u201cGeneral Mark Milley [Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff], who a year ago was talking about how Kyiv could fall in couple of days, now says that Russia has lost strategically, operationally and tactically, and Ukraine should sort of go out to finish them off,\u201d he said.
\nTalking about the impacts of war on Russian economy, the analyst said his country was facing severe economic depression. \u201cRussia, of course right now, has very serious financial problems with a deficit that\u2019s being financed by printing money. It has problems on the battlefield at the same time.\u201d
\nTalking about the possible end to Russia-Ukraine war, Felgenhauer said: \u201cThere was a military reason \u2014 to prevent Western missiles appearing in Ukraine for a direct strike on Moscow.
\nThere was a geopolitical reason \u2014 to reunite the Russian people, assuming that Ukrainians are Russian people, and to defy the West and actually undermine Western unity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MOSCOW, Russia Russian defence analyst Pavel Felgenhauer on Tuesday predicted that after 12 months of bloody battles between Russia and Ukraine, \u201cthe intensity of the fighting is too high for it to be maintained for long\u201d. In an interview with Al Jazeera TV, the analyst said he is unable to predict who however will win […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315200,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-315182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n