Russia sees long ‘hybrid war’ with West 

The Kremlin said Wednesday that Russia’s confrontation with the West would likely last a long time, as Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine grinds through its second year.

“If we talk about the war in a broad sense: the confrontation with Western countries, hybrid war… this will go on for a long time,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

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Western intelligence has indicated that Russia hoped to achieve its objectives in Ukraine within days of launching its “special military operation” last February, but that has not come to pass.

Peskov claimed Russians had rallied around President Vladimir Putin in an “unprecedented” way and that most want to see his goals in Ukraine achieved.

“We see an absolutely unprecedented consolidation of Russian society around the president, around the supreme commander-in-chief and the policy that he is pursuing,” Peskov said.

“And we see an absolutely dominant conviction in our society that all the goals of the special military operation should be and will be achieved,” he added, using Moscow’s term for the offensive.

Russian state media has provided exclusively pro-Kremlin coverage of its troops’ activities in Ukraine, with criticism of the military campaign banned by strict censorship laws.

There are no reliable polls on what Russians think of the Ukraine campaign.

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