Russian forces in Ukraine changed their focus from a ground offensive aimed at Kiev, the capital, to prioritize what Moscow calls the liberation of the disputed Donbas region in the industrial east of the country, implying a new phase of the war.
As a result, residents are beginning to return to Kiev and some of the surrounding suburbs, a senior US defense official told Caitlin Doornbos, the correspondent at the Stars and Stripes Pentagon. “We continue to see Ukrainians clearing the area of mines and booby traps, but all Russian forces have left, as we said before.”
More than a month of fighting has left Russian forces stuck in much of the country, even on their way to Kiev.
Since the beginning of the war, Russia has launched more than 1,500 missiles into Ukrainian territory, the US senior defense official said. The deployment of weapons and soldiers that were seen on Ukrainian territory came at a high cost to Russian troops.
“It is not clear how long it will take Russia to recondition the forces that left the Kiev and Chernihiv areas and send them back to Ukraine because some units are much more devastated than others. We have seen indications of some units that are literally, for all intents and purposes, eradicated.”
“There is simply nothing left in the [Russian land units that left Ukraine] except a handful of troops and perhaps a small number of vehicles, and they will have to be reconstituted or resupplied. We have seen others who have dropped their staff by 30%, or even more,” the source added.
Russian replenishment could still be difficult even in Belarus, as US officials do not believe that they have solved all their logistics and maintenance problems: “And, therefore, our feeling is that they probably will not be able to impose themselves in the eastern part of the country very quickly.”
But keep in mind that Russia still has about 80-85% of its troops and the combat equipment it initially deployed for the invasion six weeks ago, according to the US senior defense official.
Putin's forces are under great pressure in many parts of the country, and the United States and other countries are accelerating their transfer of arms and supplies to Ukraine. In recent days, US officials have said they see evidence that Ukrainian defenders go on the offensive to a limited extent in some areas. Earlier this week they managed to attack a large Russian ship in the port on the Black Sea coast.
Since the beginning of the invasion on February 24, Putin has been vague in publicly describing his military objectives in Ukraine. He said the purpose was to “demilitarize” and “denazify” the government, as well as “liberate” the Donbas, a part of which has been under Russian-backed separatist control since 2014. Putin deployed more than 150,000 soldiers on the borders of Ukraine and then pushed them in numerous approaches to various objectives, rather than focusing on a single strategic objective such as Kiev or the Donbas.
In the four weeks since, Ukrainians have come up with much tougher resistance than Putin probably expected, and Russian forces have been held back by numerous problems, including weak logistics and perhaps declining morale.
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