NATO predicts the second phase of russia's war against Ukraine to begin soon

What happened? NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoană predicts that the second phase of Russia's war against Ukraine will be “bloodier and more complicated” and will begin very soon.

The source. This was reported by Digi24.

Comment. Geoană said that the resumption of the russian offensive was “inevitable”.

“We have all the evidence which testifies to the fact that the second phase of the war will begin soon. The second phase will be more complicated and extremely bloody, although this war is already quite a bloody one. This phase will be different in nature, as it will take place in a larger area: in Donbass and Southern Ukraine near the Crimea and Mariupol,” he said.

The NATO Deputy Secretary General explained that there was a “conscious difference” in how the russian side approached the attack on Kyiv, which was considered a temporary invasion to block the Ukrainian army in defending the capital, and in what it was preparing for the Southern and Eastern territories, that Moscow wanted to capture.

“It's something completely different, in terms of the intensity and brutality of the attacks in the areas that the russians want to capture during this war, so the difference is in how they treat the population. This is practically an attempt to create a new reality, including the point of view of the population,” said the Deputy Secretary General.

Background. In the war in Ukraine, the kremlin is redeploying forces to the East in an attempt to take control over the Donbass region. Analysts see the change in russia's approach as a tacit acknowledgment of failure: it was the fierce resistance of Ukrainian forces that prevented putin from quickly capturing large cities and overthrowing the government.