Russian nationals recruited in a partial mobilization take part in combat training at the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) training sites as the Russo-Ukrainian war continues in Donetsk, Ukraine on 5 October 2022.
Anadolu agent | Anadolu agent | beautiful pictures
A new Russian attack in the east of Ukraine is underway.
It started last week with a new push by the forces of Moscow on the outskirts of Bakhmut in the Donbas, and a wave of attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure in Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia.
Over the weekend, Russian forces shelled Ukrainian cities such as Nikopol, a city in the southeastern region of Dnipropetrovsk, where a person is presumed dead.
Ukrainian officials had been expecting a fresh offensive in the days leading up to the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of the country, on February 24, due to a tendency to hold military celebrations and symbols in Moscow. .
The scope of Russia’s plans remains uncertain but whatever happens, it comes at a difficult time for Kiev.
Ukraine’s forces have fought fierce battles in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, and while the country’s international allies have supplied them with weapons worth billions of dollars since the war began begin, The latest batch won’t come for a few monthspotentially delaying the ability to launch a counterattack.
However, Ukrainian officials still want to emphasize that they are prepared for whatever is to come – despite noting that Russia has a manpower advantage, having mobilized hundreds of thousands of people in the past few months. recently.
“Russia needs something to show off [for the war]“For the past six months, the only thing they have been able to gain control of is the ruins of the city of Soledar, a village,” Yuriy Sak, an adviser to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, told CNBC.
He hopes Moscow will try to gain full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
“We have seen that they are accumulating and building up their military presence in the frontline area, near Bakhmut and places like Kreminna… there are signs that they are preparing for something, ” he said, adding that Ukraine would do “everything possible and impossible” to ensure that Russia does not achieve its goals.
However, Kyiv has not seen any kind of military buildup – such as armored vehicles, tanks and infantry – suggesting a high-intensity attack is imminent, he added.
Ukrainian servicemen dig trenches near Bakhmut on February 1, 2023, as they prepare for a Russian attack in the area.
Yasuyoshi Chiba | afp | beautiful pictures
Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine’s former defense minister, told CNBC there was a sense of expectation in Ukraine about a potential attack, but no fear.
“We’re not intimidated by this too much. Of course, people are thinking and talking about it, and they’re concerned… but everyone just understands that we have a tough time ahead of us. and the previous months have not been easy,” said Zagorodnyuk.
He suggested that the offensive would focus on Donetsk and Luhansk in the east, Zaporizhzhia in the south and Kharkiv in the northeast.
“There’s basically going to be a lot of artillery involved,” he noted, “so it’s very similar to what we’ve seen in this war in the areas where they’ve hit. [before]. So basically it’s going to be artillery, tanks, armored vehicles, troop mobility – basically standard maneuver warfare the Russian way… What we’ll see different from now is just the number of people and the number of devices.”
target
Western defense analysts agree that Russia is unlikely to deviate from its main goal in the war – the complete capture of a Ukrainian territory stretching from the east coast to the south coast (essentially, the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson) which they claimed to have merged last time. September.
Moscow is reportedly focusing on creating a land corridor to Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula it annexed in 2014.
Jamie Shea, a former NATO official and international security and defense expert at think tank Chatham House, told CNBC: “The main goal should be to completely capture the territory of the four provinces annexed by Russia with great fanfare. last year”.
“Russia is clearly controlling about 50% of the territory of those four provinces, that should be the goal because anything less than that – merger and not full control – would be an affront to the country. with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” he noted.
Shea, deputy assistant secretary-general in charge of emerging security challenges at NATO until 2018, said he did not expect a big start to the offensive.
Instead, he expects Russia to “build on these slow advances,” a tactic it has employed in the Donbas in recent months that has seen Russian forces make strides. small but stable – albeit at the expense of heavy casualties.
“The Russians are going to make sure they have the upper hand, go a few kilometers, take a village, and keep progressing like that,” Shea said.
Ukrainian servicemen walk on their way to their base near the front line in the Donetsk region on February 4, 2023.
Yasuyoshi Chiba | afp | beautiful pictures
This strategy in favor of Russia, he said, is “crushing the Ukrainians”. In addition, Russia knows that the equipment that Ukraine has been promised by its allies will not appear until the summer.
Oleksandr Musiyenko, a military expert and head of the Center for Military and Legal Studies in Kiev, says that while there is a danger of the sheer number of troops Russia has at its disposal, the military is. The country has exhausted its arsenal of heavy artillery and tanks. .
“They will mobilize everything in Russia, they will try to get older tanks, even with older models and artillery systems, and they will try to use it. So yes, we are. Yes, we can see the danger in this. But we can also see that the Ukrainian military forces, with the support of their partners, have made great progress. big in the past year,” he noted.
Former Defense Minister Zagorodnyuk added that Russia’s core weakness lies in its lack of concern for its soldiers.
“They’ve got loads of equipment, they’ve got loads of weapons, they’ve got loads of people and money… The weakness is that this is still Russia… it’s still basically a Soviet army that has been established. improvement,” said Zagorodnyuk, the current president of the Soviet Union. Kiev-based Defense Strategy Center said.
“But because they despise life, they don’t spend a lot of time creating quality capacity. So, in essence, this is a low-quality force, even if it’s a larger quantity.”
Over the weekend, Ukrainian officials are said to have stated that Russia is having a hard time launching its much-anticipated offensive.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told Ukrainian television on Saturday, according to an AP translation: “They have already started their attack, they just don’t say they have it. , and our military is pushing it back very forcefully.”
“The attack they planned has been gradually carried out. But [it is] not the attack they were counting on.”
