On the one hand, beyond the internal disagreements that may exist between Putin himself and his defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, Moscow is not going to change its strategy. Forced into a defensive attitude by lack of means to regain the initiative on the battlefield, it can be assumed that he will continue with his indiscriminate bombardments against the civilian population -like the one registered on the 27th in a well-known restaurant in Kramatorsk-, seeking to demoralize them by imposing a climate of permanent terror. Similarly, will continue to reinforce its three lines of defense to prevent kyiv’s offensive from advancing further into the 15% of Ukrainian territory it still controls; and even will try to make some kind of local counterattack, like the ones it is launching in some locations in northeastern Ukraine.
For his part, Ukraine insists on conveying the idea that the offensive launched three weeks ago is achieving results. kyiv proclaims that it has already recovered some 300km2, mainly in the Zaporizhia sector; which can be simultaneously qualified as good news, if it is highlighted that it is much more than what Moscow achieved in its last winter offensive, or not so good, if one takes into account that in the Ukrainian offensive in the spring of 2022 it achieved recover more than 3,800km2 in the same time. To this is added the recovery of control of Bajmut, a success with more symbolic load than real, and the fact that kyiv has already managed to establish some bridgeheads on the left bank of the Dnieper River, in the Zaporizhia sector, although that does not mean that it can already forcefully break through that Russian defensive line.
Ukraine, facing the same challenge
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Before throwing the bells into flight, believing the disappearance of the Wagner group from Ukraine drastically changes the situation on the ground, it is worth remembering at least two factors. First of all, Wagner’s fighters were no longer in the front line of defense, once they had been relieved in the Bakhmut area, where they had been fully used to control the city. Furthermore, there is no news confirming his disappearance from the battlefield. And even if it were, just remember that its force was estimated at a maximum of 25,000 troops, of which no more than 5,000 would have been employed in the rebellion that directed its steps to Moscow. That, on a military front of some 1,100 km in which Moscow has embedded no less than 200,000 troops, means that the Ukrainian offensive faces basically the same challenge as it did before the mercenary riot.
In any case, it is also true that, at least for the moment, the threat to the interests of kyiv does not increase, against which some sources point when they glimpse a massive presence of Wagner mercenaries in Belarus, from where they could launch a direct attack against kyiv. There is no record of whether Prigozhin is already in that country, welcomed by Lukashenko, and even less that he already has shelter there for his group. A group that, if he succeeds, will be insufficient for an operation of this magnitude.