Putin enforces Ukraine 'red line,' now aims to create 'as much suffering as possible' with grain strikes

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has hit a slow-burn phase after nearly 18 months of intense fighting, focusing primarily on Kyiv’s counteroffensive and Moscow’s efforts to hold their gains after ensuring Ukraine will not be able to join NATO. 

"The Russian offensive is grinding on a low-intensity pace as the Russians are focused primarily on holding on to the territory they’ve captured and thwarting [the] Ukrainian counteroffensive, which has not produced much gain for Kyiv," Rebekah Koffler, president of Doctrine & Strategy Consulting and a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer, told Fox News Digital.

"Putin is unlikely to push for any new major gains, as his objective in Ukraine is largely achieved," she explained. "Russia controls roughly about 20 percent of Ukraine and the conflict has turned into a protracted war."

"This means that lack of territorial integrity and an ongoing conflict preclude Ukraine from meeting the requirements to join NATO, Putin’s red line," Koffler added. 

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The Russian State Duma voted on Tuesday to increase the age of conscription to 30 years, allowing Russian President Vladimir Putin to expand his forces as they continue fighting to hold the eastern disputed territories of Donetsk and Luhansk, which Russia captured at the start of its invasion in February 2022. 

Russia’s Ministry of Defense will look to introduce the military draft age limit increase gradually, according to TASS. 

The small but essential step of escalation follows a number of attacks Moscow authorized, with missile strikes on Ukrainian trade routes and facilities such as the Danube Port – a vital part of the grain route. 

Last year, the United Nations brokered a deal between the warring nations to secure vital grain trade, with Ukraine and Russia making up around 25% of the world’s wheat, hence Ukraine’s nickname as the "breadbasket of Europe." 

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Earlier this month, Moscow announced that it had terminated the deal and then attacked Ukrainian ports just one day later as part of "mass revenge strikes" that Russia claimed would balance out attacks from Kyiv against bridges connecting to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia has held since its initial incursion in 2014. 

Russia has particularly focused its attacks on Odesa, where it destroyed 60,000 tons of grain, according to Ukraine’s Agriculture Ministry.

"If we cannot export food, the population of the poorest countries will be on the brink of survival!" Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solskyi wrote in a statement. "The price of grain will increase, and not all countries will be able to afford buying agricultural products, which means food prices will significantly rise: flour, cereals, meat."

The United Kingdom's Permanent Representative to the U.N. Amb. Barbara Woodward stressed that Putin has full control over the outcome of the situation but chooses the option that causes "as much suffering as possible." 

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"Tomorrow, at the request of Ukraine, the Security Council will once again meet on Russia's escalatory attacks on Odesa and attempts to weaponize global food supplies," Woodward told reporters. "As we've said, President Putin has the power to end this war tomorrow, but he has shown no sign that he is willing to do so."

"In fact, he seems dead set on causing as much suffering around the world as he can," she continued. "We once again call on Russia to stop holding global food supplies to ransom and to re-join the Black Sea grain deal."

Ukraine had launched what it had hyped up as a massive counteroffensive that started once the winter weather and conditions in the country had thawed. Kyiv managed to capture some territory around the ruined city of Bakhmut but has yet to make a breakthrough across Russia’s heavily fortified defensive lines. 

Putin told local news agencies that the offensive "exists" – in contrast to Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko’s quip that "there is no counteroffensive" – but he stressed that "it has failed." 

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U.S. military officials downplayed expectations, saying that any hopes of immediate success were unlikely – a sentiment Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley repeated last week as he dismissed Putin’s claim.

"It is far from a failure. I think that it’s way too early to make that kind of call," Milley told reporters. "I think there's a lot of fighting left to go, and I'll stay with what we said before: This is going to be long. It's going to be hard. It's going to be bloody."

Koffler argued that Putin will continue his slow-burn approach to Ukraine, looking to maintain "low-intensity strikes to keep destroying Ukraine’s infrastructure that has military value and facilities that enable Ukraine’s survivability."

"His goal is to turn Ukraine into a dysfunctional state, unable to feed its people and to export its grains," Koffler said. 

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"Russia has also turned to punishing strikes on Ukraine’s cultural and religious landmarks, as part of a psychological pressure campaign intended to compel Zelenskyy to capitulate," she noted, adding that Putin will likely use the pressure on global food prices to compel Western leaders to lift sanctions on Russia and withdraw support from Ukraine in hopes of a speedy end to the conflict. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had hoped to secure more concrete protection from the NATO alliance by assuring his country’s candidacy for membership, but President Biden at the NATO summit in Lithuania earlier this month rejected the move in favor of "a rational path" for Ukraine.

"I don’t think there is unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now, at this moment, in the middle of a war," Biden said during a taped conversation with CNN. 

"For example, if you did that, then, you know – and I mean what I say – we’re determined to commit every inch of territory that is NATO territory," he said. "It’s a commitment that we’ve all made no matter what. If the war is going on, then we’re all in war. We’re at war with Russia, if that were the case."

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NATO instead committed to a multi-year assistance program to help Ukraine accelerate its transition away from Soviet-era doctrines and equipment in an effort to help it reach other requirements necessary for membership. 

The new package will "help rebuild Ukraine's security and defense sector, and to cover critical needs like fuel, mining equipment and medical supplies," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said. 

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.