The war could be over by May, says Ukrainian president’s adviser

A Ukrainian service member walks past a building destroyed by shelling as Russia’s assault on Ukraine continues in the town of Okhtyrka in the Sumy region, Ukraine, March 14, 2022. Iryna Rybakova/Press Service of the Ukrainian Ground Forces/Handout via REUTERS

March 15, 2022

(Reuters) – The war in Ukraine is likely to be over by early May when Russia runs out of resources to attack its neighbor, Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, said late Monday.

Talks between Kyiv and Moscow — in which Arestovich is not personally involved — have yielded very few results so far, other than several humanitarian corridors from besieged Ukrainian cities.

In a video released by several Ukrainian media outlets, Arestovich said the exact timing would depend on how many resources the Kremlin is willing to allocate to the campaign.

“I think that we should have a peace agreement no later than May, early May, maybe much earlier, we’ll see, I’m talking about the latest possible dates,” Arestovich said.

“We are now at a fork in the road: either there will be a peace deal very quickly, within a week or two, with troop withdrawals and all, or there will be an attempt to scrape together some, say, Syrians for a round two and, if we can also grind, an agreement by mid-April or late April.”

A “completely crazy” scenario could also be that Russia sends new conscripts after a month of training, he said.

Even after peace is concluded, small-scale tactical clashes could still be possible for a year, Arestovich said, although Ukraine insists on the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from its territory.

The war in Ukraine began on February 24 when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched what he called a “military special operation,” the largest attack on a European state since World War II.

(Reported by Reuters; Edited by Stephen Coates)