According to various experts, Moscow’s spring offensive in Ukraine is on the verge of collapse. There is also criticism from Russia itself.
Munich/Kyiv – Tue Front in Bachmut holds. Despite reports to the contrary, the Russian army and the “Wagner” mercenaries have not yet succeeded in taking control of the small town in the Donbass. Instead, the Ukrainian defenders are persistently consolidating their positions.
War in Ukraine: Russian spring offensive makes no progress
On Sunday (March 19) alone, the Ukrainian military said it repulsed 69 Russian attacks in the Donetsk region. This cannot be independently verified.
But: Various experts on the Ukraine war now arrive at the assessment that a collapse of the Russian spring offensive imminent. What’s more, they assume that the Ukrainian armed forces will soon go on the offensive on a broad front.
According to the US think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the Russian offensive will soon flag. Ukraine has good prospects of taking the initiative again militarily, the ISW wrote in an analysis published on Sunday (March 19).
Ukraine War: Will the Russian Army Be Put on the Defensive Soon?
“If 300,000 Russian soldiers were not able to give Russia a decisive offensive superiority in Ukraine, then mobilizing additional forces in future waves of mobilizations this year is very unlikely to produce a significantly different result,” the statement said Report: “Ukraine is therefore in a good position to start again (…) counter-offensives on critical sections of the front.” Gustav Gressel of the European Council on Foreign Relations comes to a similar conclusion.
“There are new reports that they have made progress in the Siwersk area, that they have also made progress south of Bakhmut,” said the Austrian military expert to the Russian army. But: “The pictures you get are not what many probably expected under the Russian spring offensive. It’s smaller. And it is more fragmented than the spring offensives that the Red Army launched, for example,” he explained in ZDF’s “heute journal”: “Putin’s army is not the Red Army now. She’s a whole different beast. It was defeated in large parts in the first round of this war and is fighting with reservists. With officers who must have completed the training very quickly in order to somehow get to the front.”
If reserves on the Russian side are depleted, the Russian leadership will have difficulty intercepting another breakthrough.
Ukraine war: Russian army is apparently wearing out in the Donbass
Die Ukraine must now face the Russian offensive fend them off and see “that the (Russian) gains in territory are limited. And above all, that the Russian forces are wearing out,” explained Gressel: “Only when they are weakened do gaps open up in the Russian front. If reserves on the Russian side are depleted, the Russian leadership will have difficulty intercepting another breakthrough.”
About a third of The Ukrainian army is currently in the 80-kilometer-long front around Bakhmut deployed, he described on ZDF: “There will probably be another two or three hard months, not weeks but months, before the Russian forces have been worn down to the point that they are too thin.” If there were still available forces? The Bild quotes an unnamed NATO official: “This is the Russian spring offensive. That’s what she looks like. That’s all there is to it.”
Concerns are apparently also growing in Moscow itself. It requires “at least three times, better still nine times superiority” in weapons and personnel, said the Russian military historian Ilya Moshchansky in an interview with the news portal newspaper, which will be published in the Russian capital. He did this publicly.
Ukraine War: Criticism of the Russian Army itself from Russia
In his view, the Russian military leadership is simply too old. “In Ukraine, the generals are quite young, they are about 50 years old,” Moshchansky said. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian armed forces are getting more and more of what they need for a successful counteroffensive – and not only in Donbass.
Last weekend, for example, more Leopard 2 tanks arrived from Canada. Ottawa had already delivered four examples and then announced the delivery of four more “Leos”. Apparently, all eight promised tanks have now arrived in Ukraine. And not only this one. Germany had Kiev, meanwhile, 18 modern versions of the “Leos” promised, at the end of February boxing world champion Wladimir Klitschko posted a video of him driving a Leopard 2 from Germany.
Ukraine War: Ukrainian army forms battlegroups with western tanks
The Ukrainian army is apparently hoarding main battle tanks in order to set up battlegroups with them. Ukrainian soldiers had recently completed their training at “Leos” in Germany. But that’s not all: On Monday (March 20), the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell promised Ukraine extensive supplies of ammunition. “We are providing two billion euros for ammunition,” he said. And that he is confident that the European Union (EU) will deliver the ammunition on time. Time for a counteroffensive? (pm)