Vladimir Putin is set to speed up the payment of soldiers’ salaries in a bid to stop protests forming on the streets of Russia.
It has been claimed that the Kremlin is looking to find ways to appears troops fighting in Ukraine along with their relatives amid growing frustration at the botched invasion.
Long deployments to the country’s neighbour without rotation have angered not only those fighting on the front line but also their wives.
Earlier this month women took to the streets in Moscow to hold a rare public protest to make their feelings known the Putin about the war.
They gathered in Teatralnya Square demanding a better rotation of troops.
Intelligence officials at the UK’s Ministry of Defence said: “The apparently indefinitely extended combat deployments of personnel without rotation is increasingly seen as unsustainable by both the troops themselves and by their relatives.”
Russian opposition media reports that officials in the Kremlin hope the swifter payment of soldiers’ salaries will help reduce the friction.
The Kremlin is eager to avoid a repeat of the mass protests seen in previous wars when the wives and mothers of soldiers protested against the deaths of Russian men.
Russian independent media outlet The Insider claimed Russian officials had been told to do whatever necessary to stop a spread of the protests which took place a few weeks ago.
One official told the outlet: “Persuade, promise, pay.
“Anything, as long as it doesn’t go out onto the street, in any quantity, even 50 people.”
Russia has lost hundreds of thousands of fighters since the start of the Ukraine war in February 2023.
New figures indicate that on Friday Putin suffered his worst ever day for military losses with more than 1,000 soldiers and 30 tanks killed or destroyed.
Ukrainian military experts have said Russia’s old equipment is to blame for their struggles.
Ivan Stupak, a former Ukrainian Security Service officer, said: “It’s really a big problem for the Russians.
“It’s not just a cliché, it’s not Ukrainian propaganda.
“For the last five months or so, Russia has very actively been using old-style artillery.
“Not late-Soviet era, but mid-50s and mid-60s—D30 and the D20-type of towed artillery, with a maximum range of around 9 to 11 miles.”
He said that Russia has become reliant on older machinery after running out of artillery due to the prolonged nature of the war.
Russia offered to stop its invasion of Ukraine on the condition that Zelenskyy’s government abandoned its ambition to join NATO, The Kyiv Post reports.
David Arakhamiya, leader of the Servant of the People party and head of the Ukrainian delegation in the talks, said that Russia had proposed a resolution to the conflict in spring 2022.
The peace talks took place during the early stages of the full-scale war in Belarus and Turkey.
The Russian delegation reportedly proposed ending the war if Ukraine dropped its NATO aspirations and took a neutral position.
Arakhamiya said that a shift toward neutrality would require a constitutional change, considering Ukraine’s current constitutional commitment to NATO membership.
Arakhamiya told Ukrainian journalist Natalia Moseychuk that Russia saw Ukraine’s neutrality as a key condition for a potential peace agreement. “They really hoped almost to the last that they would put the squeeze on us to sign such an agreement so that we would take neutrality. It was the biggest thing for them,” he said.
The Ukrainian leader said there was a lack of trust in Russia’s sincerity. “There is no, and there was no, trust in the Russians that they would do it. That could only be done if there were security guarantees,” he explained.
Signing an agreement without such assurances, Arakhamiya argued, would leave Ukraine vulnerable to a potential second incursion, as it would have provided Russia with an opportunity to regroup and prepare for another round of military aggression.
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s unexpected visit to Kyiv on April 9 had an impact on the potential ceasefire. Johnson advised against signing any agreement with Russia, encouraging Ukraine to continue the fight. Arakhamiya recalled Johnson’s stance, saying Ukraine “shouldn’t sign anything with them at all – and let’s just fight.”
While both sides expressed readiness for a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin, discussions abruptly halted when Russian troops retreated from Kyiv. The withdrawal exposed the shocking extent of war crimes committed, including the Bucha massacre.
Three days after Johnson’s departure from Kyiv, Putin publicly declared that talks with Ukraine had “turned into a dead end.”
NATO expansion has been underway since the beginning of the war, with formerly neutral Finland joining the alliance in April.
Business Insider reported in January that Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine was a miscalculation, as the war backfired by uniting NATO in support of Ukraine.
While the bloc has been a crucial ally to Ukraine, there is a reluctance to initiate Ukrainian membership while it is at war. The US opposes extending NATO membership to Ukraine in the immediate future to avoid escalating the West’s tensions with Russia.
