Unconfirmed sources suggest that Vlad was very impressed by a teenage girl who identifies as being on the autism spectrum, that has made a personal crusade to alert the world to the dangers that come from not caring about “Our Carbon Footprint”
Apparently he has taken her pleas to heart and in an effort to reduce his military Co2 footprint he’s been allowing the opposition to bring their cannon fodder to him as opposed to chasing them further to the West.
After all, his mission statement for this operation wasn’t to take over the whole country but just to provide protection to those who were being persecuted in the eastern part of the country for being Russian speakers.