He is lying....
He is out of manpower and doesn't want to import African conscripts into the fighting. Nor can he begin conscripting young men from the other big cities in Russia without a LOT of political fallout.
Putin has conscripted men from every poor section of Russia and neighboring areas he has conquered....but he is literally out of poor. He can't re-conscript prisoners....he wouldn't get any more.
Also his munitions are running tight for Russia normal battle tactics.
So he wants a pause to scrounge up more soldiers, somewhat train them and get munition production caught up. This is actually time to create a major offensive.
I personally think, that your post is wishful thinking. You could be right though, but I don't really know what's going on, but my view is vastly different than yours.
I see it as Putin is happy with having an extra buffer zone between Russia and NATO, and Putin knows, that if the war continues, it will most likely open Pandora's Box....All out war, which would probably force his hand, and use nukes.
This is actually the second time, he has requested a ceasefire. The first time he asked, Zelensky agreed, only if the Putin pushed his troops back, he conceded, than Zelensky backed out of the promise, because he was told to never surrender by Boris Johnson I believe.
Russia has enough missiles to put Ukraine under hell's fire in an hour, he doesn't feel like ending mankind this particular year, so he is trying to end the war. Ukraine will take years to rebuild, so he doesn't see Ukraine as any kind of threat at the moment.
He does see, that the war has escalated, and he asked NATO to not interfere in it's effort to bring political change in Ukraine. NATO ignored these threats, so Russia was stuck fighting a war, that had no end in sight. It's basically a stalemate.
Napoleon and Hitler tried to conquer Russia and have failed miserably. If you think NATO can conquer Russia, your in for a rude awakening. You better believe Russia and Putin have an air tight defensive strategy and counter measures to inflict serious casualties on any country, that will dare threaten Moscow.
Of course NATO knows this, so they have Russia under financial sanctions, since 2014. This hasn't worked to well, since China and Russia have become better trading partners. With China experiencing a massive rise, the sanctions haven't hurt Russia as much as NATO has hoped.
So, the CIA or whatever political entity has been used to undermine Russia as much as possible, in any way possible. Even blaming Russia for U.S. elections. Whatever they can say, bad about Russia, they will.
At the present, they see the proxy war in Ukraine, as an excellent way to hurt Russia by war of attrition. NATO's economy vs. Russia's economy. They figure they can destabilize Russia, by continuing a war, that will require Russia to devote resources to a war, that can't be won.
NATO isn't stupid enough to take on Russia head first, but will give Ukraine all the military aide to keep the war of attrition going. Putin wants to cut his loses now, take what he can get, and fight on another day. That's how I see it, but if NATO wants a fight, Putin is more than willing to go toe to toe.
Russia feels like they have China in it's back pocket, their special relationship gives them both extra confidence in the political change, they both want to see in the world. NATO has it's goals, and Russia and China see it differently. Both Russia and China have already agreed on this world regime change, so it's just a matter of time before we see the deadly conflict, that proceeds political change.
China has grown both financially and militarily, possibly even bypassing the U.S. in both fronts. No one really knows for sure, but hopefully most can agree, that China is a power house of a country. Russia could easily have given China military secrets for goods, or financial products.
China is launching it's own war with the U.S., it maybe just financial right now, but there are rumors of military force with Taiwan as we speak. Russia and China are fed up with the U.S. bullying everyone, and they are prepared to clip the eagle's wings, out of fear of losing it's right to exist as independent nations.
The U.S. and Europe have ever increasingly financial deficits, that they can't seem to shake off, unless they default. Economically, the U.S. is a mess. People can't afford to eat and finding a job, that pays the bills, are getting more rare. Well, it's true. Inflation hits when wars begin.
I just don't see how the U.S. rebounds personally. So many things going on, that it seems difficult to find a solution for. I hope the U.S. becomes strong again, but maybe the powers that be, want a war. The U.S. is the number one manufacturer of weapons, so if there is world war, weapon sales goes up. I don't know.
Basically, Russia and China are tired of U.S. dominance, so there might be a shake up coming. The U.S. really is the military might in NATO, so you probably don't want to be in the middle of that, if and when things go down. lol
These are just opinions, I could be entirely wrong.
