overview
Nothing came of the lightning victory planned by the Kremlin. Five weeks after the start of the invasion, Putin is betting on fatigue and uncertainty. But neither the Ukrainians nor the West are fooled.
More than five weeks after the outbreak of war, the defenders apparently managed to free the Ukrainian capital from the grip of Russian troops. As announced from Moscow, the attackers, who failed militarily, appear to be completely withdrawing from the metropolitan area. The same apparently applies to Chernihiv to the north. Nevertheless, there can be no talk of relaxation. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg summed it up in a simple way: “According to our intelligence, Russian units are not withdrawing but are repositioning themselves.”
The Russian military is expected to gather and replenish its forces, and then send them into battle. What the British military are observing also speaks in favor of this: Reinforcements are being brought in from the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in order to compensate for the losses suffered by the Russians so far. According to military experts, the fact that Russia is attacking tank farms and supply lines in western Ukraine in order to militarily weaken Ukraine also fits in with this strategy. At the same time, Western diplomats are observing that the Russian talks with Ukraine are “poorly based” – that is, in terms of content and composition, they may not be aimed at a solution at the negotiating table.
The main Russian destination remains the port city of Mariupol
The Russian military leadership has declared that its troops should now focus on the complete conquest of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. The inability to take the capital is reinterpreted as a plan: the aim of the first stage was “to force the enemy to concentrate their forces, means, resources and military technology to hold large settlements, including Kiev.”
The Pentagon has also confirmed a withdrawal of Russian soldiers from the Kyiv region to neighboring Belarus. “In the past few days we have realized what a strong and large group was in front of Kyiv,” said Ukrainian General Olexander Pavlyuk.
Shortly before, the Ukrainian military had already reported the recapture of the Kiev suburb of Irpin. There were equally successful Ukrainian advances in the Dnipropetrovsk area, during which Russian units were pushed back into the neighboring Cherson region. An immediate threat to the city of Kryvyi Rih had been averted. Smaller successes were also reported from the Zaporizhia region. To this end, the Ukrainian troops have recaptured several places west and east of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
The current main target of the Russian troops remains the port city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, which has been surrounded since the beginning of March. According to Russian information, the Ukrainian forces were already divided in two. More than half of the city with once 440,000 people is said to be under Russian control, including parts of the center around the badly damaged city theater. On the Ukrainian side, it is expected that fresh Russian forces will intensify the fighting – including increased use of air force and artillery.
The Russian troop deployments are also likely to lead to greater deployments of forces in the rest of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. “The main battle of this war will take place there, which will define the further course of events in Ukraine,” Ukrainian military expert Oleh Zhdanov told state broadcaster Dom.
The goal there is obviously still to encircle the Ukrainian units around the cities of Slovjansk and Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region and Sievjerodonetsk and Lyssychansk in the Luhansk region. This is intended to eliminate the most powerful parts of the Ukrainian armed forces and force the government in Kyiv to make concessions in the peace negotiations taking place at the same time.
Ex-NATO general: “There will be no second Syria”
“Those who talk don’t shoot,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in an interview in January. The sentence expresses a hope that has been dashed – albeit in Kosovo, Syria, Yemen and in almost all armed conflicts. On the contrary, after a phase of strategically wrong decisions, Putin seems to want to leave his opponents in the dark about his goals – and to rely on a dual strategy of war and a conference table.
Should he be able to implement his Donbass plans, there is still a risk of a push along the Black Sea coast towards Odessa in order to cut off Ukraine’s sea access and establish a connection towards Moldova’s internationally unrecognized Transnistria. And he can advance to the important river Dnipro and then launch an offensive north to capture Kiev.
Parallel to the ground fighting, Russia is continuing missile attacks from the air and from the sea. What is new is that tank depots and ammunition depots in particular are now being targeted and destroyed as far away as western Ukraine. But other objects of the Ukrainian armaments industry are also the target of the attacks – and with great success. Presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych stated on Wednesday: “They have practically destroyed our armaments industry and are destroying our civilian industry in many areas.”
Former NATO general Hans-Lothar Domröse told the German Press Agency that Putin could regroup the military. However, the Russian President must have realized that he could not conquer the capital. “Even new, fresh forces are not coming into the city.” Domröse thinks it’s likely that at some point Putin will try to sell territorial gains as victory.
“There won’t be a second Syria, neither side can stand it. People are starving and dying of thirst in Mariupol, and the Ukrainian president is always in his bunker,” says Domröse. “And the Russians have also suffered losses, according to British information about well over 10,000 dead in the first four weeks. That is three times what the Americans suffered over the years in Iraq.”
Source: Stern
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