Has Putin’s spring offensive already failed?

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Nothing new in the East. Putin’s so-called “military special operation” has been stuck since May 2022, when the Russian army occupied the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. The daily reports from the front from Ukraine and Western secret services always show the same picture: skirmishes in eastern Ukraine, with heavy casualties, especially in the hotly contested north and southwest of Donetsk. Territory gains are minimal, the number of casualties and material wear immense. The Wall Street Journal reports that 200,000 Russian soldiers have died since the start of the war. According to the Swiss analysis company Statista, Russia has lost more than 4,000 tanks in this period alone. In addition, Russian troops, including the Wagner Group, complain about a chronic lack of ammunition.

Six months after the partial mobilization of 300,000 reservists, Vladimir Putin (70) still has no military successes to report. The major offensive expected on the anniversary of the invasion is mired in trench warfare. And she starts flagging. On Monday, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the British Ministry of Defense reported huge problems facing Russian troops in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. The Wagner group failed to encircle the Ukrainian soldiers in Bakhmut, and at Wuhledar, southwest of Donetsk, the Russian tank offensive ended in a Ukrainian ambush. The morale of the Russians is on the ground.

The number of Russian attacks fell sharply

Colonel Oleksiy Dmytrashkivskyi, press chief of the Ukrainian armed forces on the Tavria front, notes that the number of daily attacks has dropped from 90-100 to 20-29 over the past week. A senior NATO official told Bild that the mega offensive announced by Russia had failed. “Nothing is coming,” the insider suspects.

“The operation lacks sufficient support and equipment to increase the pressure on the Ukrainian defenders and the intensity of the attacks,” says the ISW report assessing the Russian offensive in the Luhansk region. There would be a lack of tanks. Even if all reserves are focused on the Luhansk region, it is very unlikely that the Russian offensive will achieve its intended goal, the ISW experts continue.

There is a lack of equipment and trainers for new recruits

Does military weakness force the Kremlin boss to the negotiating table? Or is Vladimir Putin planning another storm? At the beginning of the year, Ukraine had expected a major second mobilization. But the recruitment of new reservists also seems to be coming to a standstill. In many regions of Russia, men of military age have been summoned to recruitment agencies, ostensibly to update their personal information, state news agency Ria Novosti reports. However, the Kremlin does not want to speak publicly of a second mobilization.

The army wants a new wave of mobilization, Ukrainian deputy intelligence chief Vadym Skibitsky told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), but there is a lack of equipment and qualified trainers for the new recruits. According to Skibitsky, the Russian army is in standby mode. Only the head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin (61), has announced the opening of 58 recruitment centers in Russia. However, Putin’s former cook no longer wants to recruit prisoners.

Source: Blick