Kyiv, Ukraine — As Russia makes slow, bloody gains in its renewed push to seize more of eastern Ukraine, it is sending increasing numbers of conscripts and military supplies into battle, Ukrainian officials say, though it’s far from clear whether Moscow is mobilizing enough could forces to maintain a longer offensive.
This was announced by the Ukrainian military on Tuesday Russian troops attacked in five different directions along the crescent front line to the east, relying on masses of troops to attempt to overrun Ukrainian positions. The tactic has allowed Russia to make incremental gains in recent weeks and slowly tighten a noose around the key Ukrainian-held city of Bakhmut, but at the cost of hundreds of dead and wounded soldiers every day, US officials said.
“We see more and more reserves being sent in our direction, we see more equipment being brought in,” Serhiy Haidai, Ukraine’s governor of eastern Luhansk region, told Ukrainian television on Monday. He said a “full-scale offensive” could begin after February 15 as the Kremlin scrambles to show progress towards the one-year mark of its invasion.
Ukraine’s military intelligence has warned that Moscow plans to mobilize up to half a million additional troops to continue its campaign. That would be “in addition to the 300,000 mobilized in October 2022,” wrote Vadym Skibitsky, Ukraine’s deputy intelligence chief, in a lengthy statement released Monday night assessing the state of the war.
But Western intelligence officials have questioned whether Russian President Vladimir V Putin could quickly find hundreds of thousands more soldiers without triggering a major domestic political backlash. The Kremlin is already struggling to train and arm its soldiers, military analysts said.
Britain’s Defense Intelligence Service said on Tuesday that Russia has been trying to launch “major offensive operations” since the beginning of last month with the aim of capturing the rest of the Donetsk region, which includes Bakhmut. However, due to a lack of ammunition and maneuvering units, it “only managed to gain several hundred meters of territory per week,” according to the agency in his latest daily assessment of the war.
“It remains unlikely that Russia will be able to build the forces needed to materially influence the outcome of the war in the coming weeks,” the agency concluded.
That hasn’t stopped Ukraine, however, from sounding the alarm about an impending massive Russian build-up, while pushing for more powerful weapons from the West. it first predicted that Russia would mobilize 500,000 new troops in January, a move that never materialized.
The Kremlin continued to insist on progress in eastern Ukraine. Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu told reporters that hostilities near Bakhmut and the city villedar60 miles south, “are developing successfully,” according to the official Tass news agency reported.
While Moscow’s willingness to sacrifice large numbers of soldiers for only marginal gains was repeatedly demonstrated throughout the course of the war, Mr Putin has been reluctant to publicly announce a second wave of mobilizations. The announcement of partial mobilization in Russia last September led to hundreds of thousands Men of military age to leave the country.
Mr Putin has repeatedly chosen options for his war effort that he believes are less domestically risky, according to analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a research group, only announcing partial mobilization after a series of setbacks in Ukraine.
Moscow’s recent push along the Eastern Front relied on inexperienced new recruits and ex-convicts rushing toward Ukrainian positions, straining Kiev’s forces but also inflicting heavy casualties. A Russian opposition publication, Mediazona, said fewer Russian prisoners were willing to volunteer for combat amid reports of high casualties among penal colony recruits.
Mr Haidai said Tuesday Ukrainian officials observed Russian commanders keeping newly arriving units of newly mobilized soldiers separate. The reason, he said, was to prevent casualties from spreading through the Russian ranks.
“They have a large number of dead and wounded and the commanders are trying in this way to prevent panic among the fighters,” Mr Haidai said.
