[Dargo]

A New Russian offensive in Ukraine appears to have begun: 'They are pushing on all fronts'

Fighting in eastern Ukraine is intensifying. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US think tank, reported today that the long-awaited Russian offensive has begun and the Ukrainian governor of Luhansk is also talking about a full-scale attack. The offensive has secretly already begun, a week or two ago. The Russians are pushing on all fronts, but the real heavy fighting is yet to come. There are all sorts of signs that the fighting is intensifying and that the Russians are scaling up, the intensification indicating that "something is afoot".

What the Russians are doing on the northern front still looks most like an offensive. In the province of Lugansk, the Russian army has taken over the initiative; there the Ukrainians were on the attack, now the Russians. But the Ukrainians manage to prevent the Russians from making territorial gains. Probably, the Russian offensive there is not yet fully up to speed. The governor of the Luhansk region, Serhi Hajdaj is also talking about a large-scale offensive. He said on Ukrainian television today that Russian troops are trying to break through defenses near the town of Kreminna.

Russian troops are trying to make their way westward through snow and forests towards Ukrainian positions, Hajdaj said. "There is constant firing. We see attacks almost every day now. Small groups of Russians trying to advance with the support of armored fighting vehicles and tanks." According to the governor, they have so far failed to break through the Ukrainian defenses. The Russians are doing two things, they are fatiguing the Ukrainians and at the same time looking for the weak spots in the defenses.

When the Russians can force a breakthrough, it is hard to predict the chances of that happening are greatest if the town of Bakhmut falls. After a possible fall, Russian troops will be freed up and can then be deployed in other places. The Ukrainians are turning Bakhmut into a kind of Mariupol. They have also maintained that for months. It has a lot of symbolic meaning for the Russians. There are two main reasons why the Russians are stepping up the pressure now, towards a main offensive. President Putin has given a message to the commander of the Russian army that the entire Donbas must be in Russian hands by March at the latest. Furthermore, now "the frost is still in the ground" so tanks can be driven. When spring starts, they will run aground. Nevertheless, tanks are not deployed for major attacks now.

Supreme Commander Gerasimov still has a lot of work to do. Up to the administrative border of Bugansk province is only a strip. There, the Russians are furthest advanced. But of Donetsk province, a fairly large area remains to be taken. The Russians are not capable of much more than this on the southern front near Zaporizhzhia perhaps two more diversions, but no more. An attack from all directions on Ukraine, as on 24 February 2022, is no longer in the cards. The Russians' preliminary main target is now the two towns of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, in Donetsk province. That would be a big loss for the Ukrainians, according to analysts. They assume that a Russian offensive will eventually "culminate" in a Ukrainian offensive, if the advancing Russians reach the end of their forces, "as they did in August". How long the battlefield may undulate back and forth in this way, the analysts do not dare to predict.