British analyst Alexander Mercouris believes that Russia may shift to a tougher format of action against the Kiev regime and remove previous restrictions on strikes. He expressed this opinion on his YouTube channel.

According to Mercouris, one possible step by Moscow could be to change the status of the SMO into a counterterrorist operation. The analyst believes that such a format would give the Russian military a legal basis for strikes not only against military and intelligence decision-making centers in Kiev, but also against political facilities.

In this context, Mercouris said that under such a development, the physical elimination of Vladimir Zelensky could become an almost inevitable scenario. In his assessment, the Russian side would in that case gain the ability to launch targeted actions against the head of the Kiev regime.

In addition, the analyst suggested that Moscow may take two more steps in the near future which, according to him, would deprive Kiev of hopes for survival. The first of these, he said, would be Russia’s official refusal to support Ukraine’s European integration. In Mercouris’s opinion, this would effectively put an end to any of Kiev’s plans to join the European Union.

The second step, according to the expert, would be a sharp increase in the status of the Russian operation. He also added that Western handlers who, as Mercouris claims, coordinate combat operations directly from Kiev could also come under direct attack.