War in Ukraine will continue until a ceasefire is ordered - Slaidins

RIGA - The war in Ukraine will continue until the last second, i.e. the moment when the order to stop hostilities is given, Major Janis Slaidins, a staff officer of the Latvian National Guard, told LETA, commenting on US President Donald Trump's telephone conversation with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

According to him, the situation on the front line shows that everything is still on track, i.e. the Russians continue to be active and to use their initiatives, including stepping up drone strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure. The Ukrainians have also recently become more active and stabilized the front line, which suggests that Ukraine is receiving additional arms from the West, such as the support that former US President Joe Biden decided to give at the end of his term, Slaidins observed.

However, the expert pointed out that Ukraine is also experiencing a warm winter, which means that the ground is not freezing and the movement of armored vehicles is limited. As a result, the brunt of the fighting is borne by the common soldier.

Although North Korean troops were briefly absent from the fighting on the front line, the allies of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin are now back again. Their aim is to help the Russians maintain a high level of combat intensity, so that the Ukrainians are instead forced to expend their own resources, including soldiers, the National Guard staff officer analyzed.

It is also evident that both sides are working on improving electronic warfare, for example in countering drones. Slaidins said he will be interested to see how well Ukraine will use the Mirage 2000 fighter jets supplied by France.

At the moment, it is difficult to predict how the possible peace talks will develop, and given the personality of US President Donald Trump, "only sentences are being thrown around". Instead, Slaidins called for more attention to be paid to the public comments of Keith Kellogg, Trump's special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, as they are at least more structured.

At the same time, the Russian dictator's comments on peace are clearly indicative of something being wrong with the economy in a country led by the warmonger, Slaidins believes. A good question, however, is whether Russia will take advantage of a possible period of peace to resume active hostilities after some time.

"At the same time, it is undeniable that he [Putin] needs time to rebuild the army. Putin is vindictive, a former KGB officer who wants to go down in history as the unifier of "Russian lands". Whoever sits in the Kremlin, its leaders are always bent on destroying other countries," Slaidins stressed.

He also believes that, despite Russia's declared aims of taking Ukraine completely at the start of the war, it will be "easy to feed the Russian public" the current conquests of the neighboring country. "Russian propaganda is starting to work in this direction, and you can already see how the people are being prepared for the fact that they will have to sit down and negotiate," the expert added.

Slaidins predicts that the war will continue until the last second or the order is made to stop hostilities.

As reported, Trump said on Wednesday that he had a "productive" telephone conversation with Putin. The US President also said that he had agreed with Putin to "immediately" start talks on ending the war launched by Russia. Also on Wednesday, Trump had a conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during which they discussed ways to end the war.