Thursday, Russia once again bombarded Ukraine with cruise and other missiles, striking targets from east to west, including “critical infrastructure.”
A 79-year-old woman was killed and at least seven others were injured, according to Ukrainian authorities.
According to Ukraine’s military chief, Valery Zaluzhnyy, Russian forces fired 36 missiles of various types in a two-hour overnight barrage.
According to him, air defense batteries shot down sixteen of them, a lower success rate than against previous Russian waves.
Western officials have been issuing warnings for weeks regarding Russia’s ability to conduct a new offensive. The strikes come amid reports that Moscow’s forces are severely depleted, with NATO intelligence estimating that Russia is losing 2,000 men for every 100 yards gained.
Ben Wallace, Britain’s defense secretary, stated on Wednesday that ’97 percent of the entire Russian army is in Ukraine,’ while the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) reported that Russia has lost approximately half of its best battle tanks since Vladimir Putin launched his invasion nearly a year ago.
The think tank’s ‘Military Balance 2023′ report – a highly anticipated annual bible on countries’ military sizes – offers a bleak outlook for the Kremlin at a time when Kyiv is set to receive main battle tanks and other high-powered weapons manufactured in the West.
Russian missiles struck targets in the north, west, south, east, and central regions of Ukraine, according to Ukrainian authorities.
They reported that the country’s southern defenses intercepted eight Kalibr missiles launched from a Black Sea vessel.
Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, stated that Russian forces ‘changed their tactics’ for the attack, employing ‘active reconnaissance’ and ‘false targets.’
He did not provide further information, but it is possible that Russian forces are using the strikes to test for vulnerabilities in Ukrainian air defences that have been bolstered by Western-supplied weapons systems and have had a high rate of success against previous Russian missile and drone barrages.
According to the regional governor, one of the overnight attacks caused casualties and destroyed homes in the eastern city of Pavlohrad.
Governor Serhiy Lysak reported that a 79-year-old woman was killed and at least seven others, including two who were hospitalized, were injured.
Governor added that the strike destroyed seven homes, damaged thirty others, and sparked a fire at an industrial plant that was extinguished within hours by emergency services.
Maksym Kozitskyi, a regional governor in western Ukraine, stated that a fire broke out at a “critical” infrastructure facility in the Lviv province.
He did not provide further information.
Lviv is located in the far west of Ukraine and, as a result, has been relatively untouched by Russian attacks in comparison to cities in the east, where fighting is intense.
However, the city and surrounding region have continued to be bombarded by Russian missiles as Moscow continues its efforts to demoralize Ukraine.
In recent days, questions have been raised as to whether the Russian Armed Forces are actually capable of sustaining such an offensive, amidst claims that Putin is preparing to launch a new all-out assault on Ukraine in an effort to achieve the goals set forth at the start of the war in February 2022 – to overthrow the pro-western government in Kyiv and replace it with a Russian puppet administration.
Wednesday on BBC Radio 4’s Today program, Britain’s Defence Secretary Ben Wallace stated that Russian troops in Ukraine are experiencing “almost First World War levels of attrition and success rates of a matter of metres.”
Concerning what he fears Russia will do next, Mr. Wallace stated, ‘I believe that since General Gerasimov was appointed as the sort of overall Ukraine commander a couple of months ago, when Putin fired General Surovikin, we’ve witnessed an effort to advance on all fronts.
He stated, however, that there is little evidence to suggest that a force is gathering.
“We haven’t seen a massing of a single force to punch through, a major offensive – just an effort to advance,” he said. “This has come at a tremendous cost to the Russian army.”
“We now estimate that 97% of the entire Russian army is in Ukraine, and to put that in perspective, that means that those tens of thousands of miles of border that the Russians have with China, Norway, and Finland, imagine that all those people are now trapped in Ukraine and suffering extremely high casualty rates.
Mr. Wallace stated, “I believe that what Russia is attempting to do is advance, albeit at a human wave rate of almost First World War levels of attrition and with success rates measured in metres rather than kilometers.”
“I think what we have to ask ourselves – and this is the biggest unknown – is: when you have a president and a general staff with either a disconnect from reality or no regard for human life, how does that end?”
In its daily update on the ongoing war in Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War stated yesterday that Mr. Wallace’s assessment that “Russia lacks sufficient mechanized combat power for a breakthrough” was consistent with its most recent assessments.
According to these, the conventional Russian military must undergo substantial reorganization before regaining the capability to conduct effective maneuver warfare.
‘Wallace’s observations also suggest that Russia lacks combat-ready reserves capable of executing a large-scale offensive,’ the think tank said in its update.
In its annual Military Balance report, a key resource for defense experts, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) stated that loss rates for some of Russia’s most modern tank classes were as high as 50 percent, forcing the country to rely on models from the Soviet era.
These have proven especially vulnerable to modern western weapons donated to Ukraine, such as the Javelin hand-held missile launcher, which has been responsible for the destruction of dozens of Russian tanks since the invasion began almost a year ago, as evidenced by several online videos.
They are not producing or reactivating nearly enough to offset these loss rates. The current size of their armoured fleet at the front is roughly half of what it was at the beginning of the war, according to Henry Boyd, research fellow at the IISS, who spoke to the Reuters news agency.
He estimated that Russia lost between 2,000 and 2,300 tanks, while Ukraine lost up to 700. According to Ukraine’s own estimates, Russian losses are even greater.
Ukraine has been promised approximately 100 modern Western tanks, such as the U.S. Abrams, the German Leopard, and the British Challenger, whose capabilities vastly surpass those of older Russian models.
Boyd stated that this could result in less aggressive and less confident tank actions by Russian forces, as crews would be more concerned about the level of threat posed.
Douglas Barrie, an IISS aerospace expert, stated that Russia’s air force was largely undamaged, operating at a distance due to effective Ukrainian air defenses and a lack of tactical short-range air-to-surface missiles.
However, he indicated that Russia may employ air power more aggressively and take greater risks to strike Ukrainian ground forces.
“One of the challenges for the Ukrainians is that if they must repel a substantial Russian ground force or mass their own forces, they leave themselves vulnerable to air attack.” ‘At that point, the Russians may decide to suffer greater losses in order to inflict greater losses on the other side,’ he said.
A year into the conflict, Russia has been pushed back from the majority of the territory it initially seized, but it continues to partially occupy four regions in the south and east of Ukraine. Kiev has been warning for weeks that a new Russian offensive is imminent.
Russia announced on Wednesday that it had breached two fortified Ukrainian defensive lines on the eastern front and that Ukrainian forces were retreating in portions of the eastern province of Luhansk.
Barrie stated that Western sanctions impeded Russia’s ability to replenish its stocks of imported microprocessor-dependent guided weapons.
Despite President Vladimir Putin’s boasts about Moscow’s capabilities and repeated veiled threats to use nuclear weapons to defend what he considers to be Russian territory, the pace of development of Russia’s latest generation of nuclear weapons, he added, was slow.
Ben Barry, an expert on land warfare at the ISS, expressed skepticism that Russia could make significant progress.
He stated, “My assessment is that it will be difficult to concentrate enough credible and competent force to significantly push the Ukrainians back.”
Simultaneously, he stated, ‘it’s not clear to me that Kyiv has sufficient combat power to expel Russian forces swiftly… We can anticipate another violent year.
Meanwhile, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s ruthless mercenary organization Wagner, stated that Russian forces could capture the besieged city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine ‘in March or April’
In overnight online messages, he stated that progress would depend on whether ‘the adversary sends reserves’ and criticized Russia’s’monstrous military bureaucracy’ for failing to capture the Donetsk region city by the end of 2022.
The provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk comprise the Donbas, the industrial heartland of Ukraine, which is now partially occupied by Russia. Putin desires complete control of the Donbas, and his army is currently focused on capturing the small Donetsk city of Bakhmut.
The previous day, according to Ukrainian military analysts, Russian troops launched a number of unsuccessful attacks on villages to the north and south of Bakhmut, including the town of Vuhledar. According to reports, Russia has suffered massive casualties.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Ukraine’s Colonel Dmytrashkivskyi stated that two of Russia’s most elite brigades, the 40th and 155th Naval Infantry Brigades, were decimated around the town.
Analyst Oleh Zhdanov stated, ‘Things are extremely difficult for our forces in the region, as Russian forces are being deployed in large numbers.’
The capture of Bakhmut would provide Russia with a stepping stone to advance on two larger cities, Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, further west in Donetsk, thereby reviving Moscow’s momentum prior to the 24th of February.
In an effort to counter this, NATO alliance nations are increasing production of artillery munitions to keep up with Ukraine’s rapid use of these weapons.
Since the conflict began, Ukraine has received billions of dollars in military aid, particularly from the United States, which has contributed more than $27.4 billion.
Senior U.S. officials have advised Ukraine to postpone a major offensive until the most recent shipment of U.S. weaponry arrives and training is provided.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy stated in an evening address, ‘We must ensure that this spring it is evident that Ukraine is progressing towards victory.’
Russia characterizes the invasion as a “special military operation” against security threats, and has interpreted the delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine as evidence that the West is escalating the conflict. Ukraine and its allies characterize Russia’s actions as an imperialist land grab.
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