La troisième option, liée à une action militaire visant explicitement à faire tomber le régime ukrainien et forcer la réinsertion de l’Ukraine dans la sphère de contrôle russe, n’a été envisagée que très tardivement, autant par bon nombre d’analystes que par les responsables politiques occidentaux, plus particulièrement en Europe. L’accumulation de troupes a longtemps été perçue comme une politique de gesticulation devenue récurrente, décorrélée de tout risque de conflit majeur. Cette inhibition cognitive, très largement prise en considération par la Russie, lui a permis de monter le dispositif militaire au vu et su de tous, ouvrant la porte à l’option de l’intervention au moment choisi. Or, nous considérons, en plein accord avec l’analyse de Michael Kofman du Center for Naval Analysis, que seul ce remplacement du régime ukrainien actuel par une équipe inféodée à la Russie était susceptible d’offrir à Moscou un résultat stratégique cohérent avec les fondamentaux résumés plus haut. Une situation laissant le président Volodymyr Zelensky en place n’aurait fait qu’exacerber les tensions et n’aurait rien résolu pour Moscou. Au demeurant, l’objectif de démilitarisation et de « dénazification » de l’Ukraine affiché par Vladimir Poutine impliquait de facto une action sur l’ensemble du territoire ukrainien où sont déployées ses forces. Une fois encore, le renseignement américain, qui s’est jusqu’à présent peu trompé dans ses évaluations, avait dévoilé dans les semaines qui ont précédé l’offensive de multiples indices allant dans le sens d’une volonté de changement de régime : recrutement d’officiels ukrainiens pour le réaliser (dont les responsables russes font l’objet de sanction par le Département du Trésor), édition de « kill lists » des responsables ukrainiens actuels, etc.

Given the stakes, and likely costs, any Russian military operation would have to attain political gains that give Moscow the ability to enforce implementation. In short, just hurting Ukraine is not enough to achieve anything that Russia wants. While some believe that Russia intends to compel Ukraine into a new Minsk-like agreement, the reality is that nobody in Moscow thinks that a Ukrainian government can be made to implement any document they sign. Such a settlement would be political suicide for the Zelensky administration, or any other. Russia has no way to enforce compliance with its preferences once the operation is over. [...] The increasingly likely scenario is that Moscow intends to install a pro-Russian government backed by its forces, which aligns with recently released claims by the United Kingdom.

LVIV, Ukraine — An official in Mariupol on Saturday accused Russian forces of having taken thousands of Ukrainians against their will across the border into Russia who he feared could be compelled into forced labor.
 
Russian forces have taken “between 4,000 and 4,500 Mariupol residents forcibly across the border to Taganrog,” Pyotr Andryuschenko, an assistant to the city’s mayor, said, referring to a city in southwestern Russia. Given chaos in the city — ongoing fighting, the lack of cellphone and internet service — his claim could not be immediately independently verified, though it was supported by testimony from others who recently fled the city.
 
Other Mariupol residents said they had heard from friends and neighbors who relayed having been taken across the border without their consent. Eduard Zarubin, a doctor who left the city on Wednesday, said he had been in touch with three families who had been forcibly taken to Taganrog by Russian soldiers.
 
“Now the Russians are walking through the basements, and if there are people left there, they forcibly take them to Taganrog,” Mr. Zarubin, 50, said.
 
In one case, he said, the whole family of one of his friends was taken away, as was the family of his friend’s brother.
 
In another instance, a former classmate of his 22-year-old son reported that Russian troops had gone into the family’s basement, shot into the air to frighten them and told only the men to get out, Mr. Zarubin said.
 
Mr. Zarubin’s friend contacted him by phone on Friday morning to explain that they had been taken away. Mr. Zarubin said he had been subsequently unable to reach his friends, though noted that one sent a message saying he had not been allowed to return to Ukraine.

LVIV, Ukraine — An official in Mariupol on Saturday accused Russian forces of having taken thousands of Ukrainians against their will across the border into Russia who he feared could be compelled into forced labor.
 
Russian forces have taken “between 4,000 and 4,500 Mariupol residents forcibly across the border to Taganrog,” Pyotr Andryuschenko, an assistant to the city’s mayor, said, referring to a city in southwestern Russia. Given chaos in the city — ongoing fighting, the lack of cellphone and internet service — his claim could not be immediately independently verified, though it was supported by testimony from others who recently fled the city.
 
Other Mariupol residents said they had heard from friends and neighbors who relayed having been taken across the border without their consent. Eduard Zarubin, a doctor who left the city on Wednesday, said he had been in touch with three families who had been forcibly taken to Taganrog by Russian soldiers.
 
“Now the Russians are walking through the basements, and if there are people left there, they forcibly take them to Taganrog,” Mr. Zarubin, 50, said.
 
In one case, he said, the whole family of one of his friends was taken away, as was the family of his friend’s brother.
 
In another instance, a former classmate of his 22-year-old son reported that Russian troops had gone into the family’s basement, shot into the air to frighten them and told only the men to get out, Mr. Zarubin said.
 
Mr. Zarubin’s friend contacted him by phone on Friday morning to explain that they had been taken away. Mr. Zarubin said he had been subsequently unable to reach his friends, though noted that one sent a message saying he had not been allowed to return to Ukraine.

Belarusian railway workers today sabotaged the railway lines leading to Ukraine, making it impossible for the Russians to resupply by train.
 
The Russian logistics situation near Kyiv just went from bad to worse.
 
It’s the largest sabotage action in Belarus so far during this war