United Russia’s influential official sees no victory in sight, but says the war must go on nonetheless.

Russia has failed to achieve any of the goals set by President Vladimir Putin during the invasion of Ukraine and victory is farther than ever, according to Konstantin Zatulin, first deputy chairman of the State Duma (lower chamber of the Russian parliament) Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration, and Compatriots' Relations and a member of the United Russia party. 

He reminded participants of the forum “What kind of Ukraine do we need?” on 1 June that Russia went to war in February 2022 in order to carry out the "denazification and demilitarization” of Ukraine, ensuring its neutrality, to keep NATO off Russian borders, and to "protect" the residents of the breakaway Russia-controlled Donbass region.

"On which of these accounts have we achieved any results? None. Moreover, some of them have ceased to make any sense. For example, the neutrality of Ukraine. What is the point of pushing with this demand? It has no meaning at the moment. If it continues to exist, it will no longer remain neutral," Zatulin said.

The official also underlined that besides the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, Russia annexed the Zaporizhie and Kherson provinces, but did not fully control either of them. Even worse – Russian troops never entered the city of Zaporizhie and have been pushed out of the city of Kherson.

Comparing the occupation of the town of Bakhmut with the defense of Stalingrad in 1942, Zatulin stressed that the siege of the Ukrainian town by Russian soldiers had lasted for 224 days while the Stalingrad operation ended in 200 days.

Konstantin Zatulin also believes that due to the overwhelming Western support for Ukraine, the Russian Federation will not be able to seize entire Ukraine, but stressed nonetheless that the war must continue and all aspects of life in Russia must be subdued to the military goals.

Among other notable statements by Konstantin Zatulin, which are published on his official blog, some are quote interesting to understand the shifts in the thinking of Russian officials: 

“This special military operation should have been called war from the very beginning, because it’s a war. In my opinion this is obvious for everyone.”

“If everyone says that Ukraine is the West’s knife against Russia […] why don’t we fight against the United States? Go and destroy the US and the Ukrainian issue will disappear. […] Are you able to do that? No? […] Then don’t design any unrealistic goals.”

“I didn’t vote for the recognition of the Donetsk or Luhansk republics unconditionally. I proposed to do so only if Ukraine attacked them, just as we did in the case of Georgia with South Ossetya. […] We fell in a trap. It was a mistake.”

Konstantin Zatulin, who also serves as the State Duma’s special envoy on migration and citizenship, did not cover the expansion of NATO at its eastern flank: when Finland joined the bloc in April this year, Russia’s land border with the western political-military alliance added another 1,300 kilometers. This is contrary what Moscow had expected from its Ukraine campaign.

Last month, the founder of the Wagner private army, Yevgeny Prigozhin, also spoke about the failure of Russia’s goals in the war. He believed that instead of "demilitarizing" Ukraine, Russia transformed the neighboring country into a respected military power, which will be hard – if not impossible – to defeat.