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The Russian army will soon exhaust its combat capabilities and will be forced to halt its offensive in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, according to predictions by Western intelligence and military experts.
“There will come a time when the small advances that Russia is making become unsustainable in light of costs and will need a significant pause to regenerate capacity,” a senior Western official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue. .
Assessments come despite continued Russian advances against defeated Ukrainian forces, including the capture on Friday of the city of Severodonetsk, Russia’s largest urban center occupied in the east since the launch of the last Donbas offensive nearly three years ago. months.
The Russians are now closing in on the adjacent town of Lysychank, on the opposite bank of the Donetsk River. The capture of the city would give Russia almost complete control of Lugansk Oblast, one of the two oblast or provinces comprising the Donbas region. Control of Donbas is the publicly stated goal of Russia’s “special military operation,” although the multifrontal invasion launched in February made it clear that Moscow’s original ambitions were much broader.
Capturing Lysychank presents a challenge because it is on higher ground and the Donetsk River impedes Russian advances from the east. Thus, on the other hand, Russian troops seem determined to encircle the city from the west, pushing south-east from Izyum and northeast from Popasna on the west bank of the river.
According to the talk on Russian Telegram channels and Deputy Defense Minister of Ukraine Anna Malyar, the Russian army is under pressure for all of Luhansk to be under Russian control on Sunday, perhaps to explain last week’s momentum.
But “dragged” advances depend almost entirely on the spending of large quantities of ammunition, particularly artillery shells, which are firing at a rate that almost no military in the world could maintain for long, he said. say the senior Western official.
Meanwhile, Russia continues to suffer heavy losses of equipment and men, questioning how much longer it can remain in the attack, the official said.
Officials refuse to offer a period of time, but British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, citing assessments of British intelligence, indicated this week that Russia could continue fighting only for the “next few months”. After that, “Russia could reach a point where there is no longer any forward momentum because it has exhausted its resources,” he told the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung in an interview.
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Russian commentators also look at the challenges, emphasizing a chronic shortage of labor. “Russia does not have enough physical strength in the area of the special military operation in Ukraine … considering the line of confrontation of almost a thousand kilometers (or more),” wrote Russian military blogger Yuri Kotyenok on his account of Telegram. He estimated that Russia would need 500,000 troops to achieve its goals, which would only be possible with a large-scale mobilization of the military, a potentially risky and unpopular movement that President Vladimir Putin has so far refrained from undertaking.
The Russian attack has already surpassed forecasts that Russia’s offensive capabilities will peak in the summer. Aggressive recruitment of hired soldiers and reservists has helped generate between 40,000 and 50,000 soldiers to replace those lost or incapacitated in the first weeks of combat, according to Ukrainian officials. Russia has been pulling old tanks out of storage and away from bases all over the big country to throw them to the front in Ukraine.
The Russians still have an advantage over the Ukrainian forces, who also suffer. Ukrainian officials estimated the number of their soldiers killed in action at up to 200 a day. Ukrainians have also been left almost completely without ammunition from the Soviet era on which their own weapons systems depend, and are still in the process of transitioning to Western systems.
Ukraine is running out of ammunition as prospects on the battlefield run out
But conditions for Ukrainian troops are likely to improve as more sophisticated Western weapons arrive, while those of Russian forces can be expected to deteriorate as they deepen their stocks of old and obsolete equipment, he said. say retired General Ben Hodges, a former commander. of American forces in Europe that is now part of the Center for European Policy Analysis. At some point in the coming months, Ukrainians will have received enough Western armament because they are likely to go on the counter-offensive and reverse the current of the war, he said.
“I am very optimistic that Ukraine will win and that by the end of this year Russia will return to the line on February 24,” he said, referring to the boundaries of the areas occupied by the Russians in Crimea and captured Donbas. during the fighting in 2014 and 2015. “Right now it’s a shame to be at the receiving end of all this Russian artillery. But my assessment is that things will be trending in favor of the Ukrainians in the coming weeks. “
There are already indications that the supply of Western weapons is picking up pace. The newly arrived CAESAR French howitzers were recorded in action on the battlefield last week, followed this week by the German Panzerhaubitze 2000 howitzers, the first of the heavy weapons promised by Germany to be delivered.
The first of the long-awaited US HIMARS systems, which will give Ukrainians the ability to attack up to 50 miles behind Russian lines, has also been delivered to Ukraine in recent days, according to US officials, although these weapons have not yet been reported. in use in the first lines.
It is difficult to predict the future because not much is known about the conditions and strength of Ukrainian forces, said Mattia Nelles, a German political analyst studying Ukraine. Ukrainians have maintained a high level of operational secrecy, making it difficult to know, for example, how many troops they still have in the Lysychansk area or the true rate of casualties, he said.
Another unknown is the extent of Russian artillery stocks, which estimates of Western intelligence had initially underestimated, the Western official said. Expecting a short war in which Ukrainian forces quickly folded, the Russians made no effort to increase production before the invasion, and although they have presumably done so now, their defense industrial complex lacks the capacity. to keep up with the “huge” rate at which Russia is spending artillery shells, the Western official said. “Their offer is not infinite,” he said.
And while Ukrainian forces are going through a difficult time right now, they don’t seem in danger of collapsing, said expert Michael Kofman, director of Russian Studies at the Naval Analysis Center, speaking on the Silverado podcast Policy Accelerator, Geopolitics Decanted.
The Ukrainians continue to besiege Russian forces north of the city of Kharkiv and have achieved limited gains in a small offensive outside the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, helping to divert Russian resources from the Donbas front.
The small territorial gains Russia is currently making are less significant than the overall balance of power on the battlefield, Kofman said.
“The most significant part of the war is not these geographical points, because it is now a competition of will, but also a competition of materials, of who will be left first without equipment and ammunition and their best units,” he said. “These two forces are likely to run out over the summer and then there will be an operational break.”
At this time, assuming that sufficient quantities of weapons and ammunition have arrived, the hope is that Ukraine can go on the counter-offensive and start pushing back Russian troops, Ukrainian officials have said.
Otherwise, both sides will defend their positions and there will be a stalemate, except for the unlikely prospect of a diplomatic breakthrough, the Western official said.
“You will have two sides that are not looking for territorial advantage but are on operational pause, focused on replenishing and relieving the front line, at which point you are in a protracted conflict,” he said.