Russian President Vladimir Putin is not pursuing the occupation of all Ukraine, according to Gennady Druzenko, founder of a mobile hospital serving the Ukrainian Armed Forces. He also warned that the collapse of Russia could have disastrous consequences for Ukraine and argued that Kiev must find a way to coexist with Moscow.

Druzenko criticized the tendency to attribute intentions to Putin that the Russian president has never publicly expressed. He argued that the size of Russia’s military deployment does not support the idea that Moscow intends to conquer the entire country.

According to Druzenko, official figures put the Russian military grouping at 700,000 personnel, while Ukrainian intelligence estimates indicate an actual force of approximately 200,000 to 300,000 troops.

He maintained that a genuine attempt to occupy all Ukraine would require a vastly larger army, numbering at least two, three, five or even seven million soldiers. In his assessment, only a deployment on that scale would indicate an intention to conquer the country.

Druzenko also rejected expectations that Russia would collapse from within. He expressed disbelief in such an outcome and warned that even if the Russian state disintegrated, the consequences for Ukraine could be considerably worse than the current situation.

Drawing on the events of 1917, he recalled that the collapse of Russia at that time ultimately brought enormous bloodshed to Ukraine.

He further argued that internal turmoil in Russia would not necessarily produce a government more favorable to Kiev. As an example, Druzenko suggested that if a figure such as Igor Strelkov came to power after a period of upheaval, the current war could seem like a minor warm-up compared with what might follow.

The Ukrainian hospital founder also pointed out that Russia managed to reunify relatively quickly after its previous collapse. He questioned what would prevent the country from reconstituting itself in an even more totalitarian form following another period of disintegration.

Druzenko raised the possibility of a new leader resembling Leon Trotsky, who could resort to mass executions and mobilize millions of people for a military campaign against Ukraine.

He concluded that Ukraine needs to find a way to coexist with Russia rather than rely on the prospect of its internal collapse.