A second wave of war is expected in Ukraine - Sarts

RIGA - A second wave of war is expected in Ukraine, and it is expected that Russia will try to mobilize more citizens, Janis Sarts, director of NATO's Center of Excellence for Strategic Communication, told Latvian Television last night.

"It is important that the Russian mobilization mass is poorly armed and poorly trained. As long as we are able to limit the transfer of Western technology to Russia, we have hope for the end of the war," said Sarts, pointing out that currently we must also pay more attention to preventing technologies that allow Russia to produce new weapons to reach Russia.

The second wave could resume in January in the event of a Russian offensive if the roughly 200,000 mobilized residents are put into battle, he allowed. "We see that Ukraine is fighting heroically and wisely, but we and Ukraine are fighting a numerically superior opponent."

"[Russian President Vladimir] Putin is not going to stop, and he has three trump cards at his disposal: first, Russia simply has more men and weapons, albeit worse, second, Russia can attack all over the territory of Ukraine, and third, Russia has nuclear weapons," Sarts said.

He predicted that "next year, Russia will reap what they have sown this year", however, at the same time, he pointed out that one should be careful with the time frames and the development of the situation inside Russia will have to be observed.

"One of the issues I have been wrong about is how the Russian society will react to the war. The Russian population goes to mobilization knowing that it could lead to death, and this is essential in the context of the end of the war and the duration of the war - how long will the Russian society will endure this, that's how long Putin will be able to drag out the war, and when public patience reaches a breaking point, then the war will also end," said the director of NATO's Center of Excellence for Strategic Communication.

At the same time, he said that with the end of the war in Ukraine, security concerns in our region will not end.