Vladimir Putin knows that time is running out. The Western allies have promised Ukraine a new arms delivery that includes hundreds of heavy battle tanks and that could change the course of the war. However, the war material can still take months to arriveand that is what the Russian president is trying to take advantage of.
In recent days – after Germany gave the green light to the delivery of the coveted Leopards and the United States offered its Abrams – the Kremlin forces have intensified attacks along the eastern front. Some consider it a revengebut it is not only that: Russia is trying recover the initiative and gain momentum before kyiv takes over the new armored vehicles.
that’s why he’s shooting its artillery at a rate not seen since September and sending tens of thousands of troops into the Donbas region, Ukrainian officials including Luhansk Governor Serhii Haidai have warned. This change in strategy coincides with the appointment of Vasily Gerasimov as the new commander of the Russian forces replacing Sergei Surovikinwho chose to adopt a defensive position.
Russia intensifies its artillery attacks.
For the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelensky, these movements are the first stages of the new Russian offensive that the allies have been predicting for weeks. “Russia wants some kind of revenge,” Zelensky said earlier this week in his daily war report. “I think it has already started”he warned.
In this line, Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian intelligence services, confirmed that the fighting is expected to intensify in February and March. “We are on the eve of a very active phase“, he announced in an appearance on national television.
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“More War”
Both armies have been preparing for ground combat for months. Specific, to liberate or hold the eastern region, the Kremlin’s main objective. Apparently, Moscow is not only amassing forces in the area, but also plans to swell its ranks.
“We see that Putin is preparing for more war, that they are mobilizing more soldiers, more than 200,000; potentially even more than that,” he said this week. Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General, during a press conference held from South Korea. And he detailed that the Russian leader was also “actively acquiring new weapons, more ammunition and increasing his own production, and buying more weapons from other authoritarian states like Iran and North Korea“.
The NATO Secretary General delivers a speech at an institute in Seoul.
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At the moment, the intentions of Russia’s new moves on the ground are unknown. Whether or not he intends to open a new frontif it wants to try to take kyiv again from Belarus or if it has intensified the bombing and ground deployment to test the Ukrainian defense.
Any scenario is possible. However, analysts such as those of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) agree that, at least for now, Russia is not going to give up on its goal. not even though that means keep sending in new soldiers poorly prepared and ill-equipped on the battlefield.
