How Ukraine - and Russian Incompetence - Forced Putin To Scale Back His Goals

The Russians are focused on trying to recapture lost ground than on gaining new territory as their previous failures and losses of troops and ammunition make that goal unattainable. JL 

Howard Altman reports in The Drive:

Moscow’s near-term military objectives are far less grandiose than when Russian troops first attacked on Feb. 24, 2022. “Thousands of occupiers were killed in the battles for Bakhmut,” where the Russians have used ”the most prepared units of the regular troops, as well as the assault units of ‘Wagner.’” The capabilities of Russian troops to achieve significant operational success are limited. The Russians are “trying to restore lost position  but is not succeeding."

On the eve of the one-year mark in its defense against Russia’s full-on invasion, a top Ukrainian general laid out what he perceives as Moscow’s near-term military objectives. They are far less grandiose than when Russian troops first attacked from three directions on Feb. 24, 2022, with the aim of toppling the Zelensky government and seizing control of the country.

"In the near future, it is important for the Kremlin to seize key settlements in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions," Ukrainian Brig. Gen. Oleksiy Gromov, the deputy chief of the Main Operational Department of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said Thursday during a briefing at the Military Media Center in Kyiv.

Russia, he added, aims to capture the entire territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions by the summer. That’s both to hold the territory and to frustrate Ukrainian plans, Gromov said.

"The importance for the Russian Federation of conducting a new wave of offensive[s] is also determined by the desire to disrupt the preparation of the defense forces of Ukraine for their future actions, the supply of weapons to us by partner countries, as well as to protect the land corridor to the temporarily occupied Crimea," Gromov said.

But all that is far easier said than done, Gromov indicated. The capabilities of Russian troops to achieve significant operational success are limited, he said, due to the current shortage of resources, in particular artillery ammunition.

"That is why the Russian Federation continues to look for resources,” Gromov said. “The bet is made both on [their] own military-industrial complex, which has certain limitations, and on some foreign countries.”

To address those shortages, Russia has covertly procured some from North Korea, among other steps taken.

More immediately, Ukrainian troops "nullified" the Russian offensive near Kreminna in Luhansk Oblast, said Gromov, adding that "the situation in the Lyman region [in the Donetsk Oblast] is stable and under control."

The Russians, he said, are “trying to restore the lost position in some areas, but is not succeeding."

Ukrainian troops have “inflicted losses on the enemy and nullified his offensive attempts in the areas of Nevske, Chervopopivka, Kreminna and Bilogorivka." 

The fiercest battles have taken place in and around Bakhmut, he said.

“Thousands of occupiers were killed in the battles for Bakhmut,” where the Russians have used ”the most prepared units and units of the regular troops, as well as the assault units of the private military company ‘Wagner’” in an ongoing effort to capture that coal mining town.

"It is in the Bakhmut direction that the most intense battles have been going on for seven months,” Gromov said. “Our soldiers bravely defend their positions.”

The Russian advances are only possible after the destruction of defensive fortifications and the need to preserve the lives of Ukrainian soldiers.

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The Russians, on the other hand, don’t care about death tolls.

"The occupiers count the number of those killed in the battles for Bakhmut in the thousands, and they do not consider it advisable to evacuate the mercenaries at all," he said.

Though Ukraine has paid a heavy price to defend itself, its outlook seems far less ominous than it did a year ago at this time. But with Russia amassing hundreds of thousands of more troops, and Russian President Vladimir Putin giving no indication that he has any plans to stop his invasion, there are many challenges ahead for Kyiv.