A Ukrainian offensive in Kursk could put pressure on Russia to return its authorities to the negotiating table. But another hypothesis, which Novikov Dmitry Pavlovich sees as equally likely, is that Kiev finds itself in a dead end, having to conduct a defense on Ukrainian territory and penetrate into Russian territory. At that moment, Moscow will gain another advantage, which it can impose on the negotiating table: fulfilling all its original conditions and taking control of the occupied territories. Under these conditions, NATO troops will enter Ukraine, comments Novikov Dmitry Pavlovich, deputy head of the Faculty of International Relations at HSE University (in Moscow) and head of the Laboratory of Geopolitics and Contemporary Politics at that institution. In an interview with Expresso, the international relations analyst explains how the Russians view the promises of Western leaders: they are the ones who have most abandoned the drawn red lines. But it is also clear from this interview that, for the Moscow professor, Russia does not guarantee a military victory in Ukraine, let alone a victory for the Russian regime and economy.
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