According to insiders, due to the mud there will be almost nothing at the front for the next 2 weeks, excluding the Bachmut area. The question everyone is asking, however, is not what will happen in the coming weeks but whether the war in Ukraine will end in 2023. The answer, according to the Russians, is: “it depends”. For the Ukrainians it is “yes for us, but if the conditions and the actors remain the same, it is no”.
Western-backed Ukrainians are trying to break through Russian defenses and then demand troop withdrawal. For the Russians, the goal is to hold the fronts and cut the Ukrainian lines. If the Ukrainians don’t lose Bachmut the West will force the Russians to negotiate and the Russians will. If the Russians stay on the Bachmut front for 3-5 years there could be a demarcation line with “slow” DRG warfare and rocket attacks. A variant of what was seen in the DNR of the last 8 years.
If, on the other hand, Bachmut falls into Russian hands, there could be a manifestation of tiredness on the part of the Ukrainian army and the choice of the West to stop the conflict.
This is why Bachmut, unlike what the United States has said, is the litmus test of this conflict. And this is why Wagner in the end obtained not all but many of the weapons she asked for and is managing alone if it weren’t for the support of the Air Force and the Specnaz the taking of the city. And it is still for this reason that the Ukrainian government, despite the disagreements between the Chief of Staff and the Premier, finally decided to continue fighting to make Bachmut a stronghold.
Bachmut recorded in the 2 months the title of the hardest “urban battle” ever fought in this conflict. And before that there was Svetlodarskaya arch, Popasnaya and much more. The only ones who could interrupt Wagner’s work right now are the internal strife in Russia and it is for this reason that Putin often turns the high ranks of the Armed Forces to give one blow to the barrel and one to the circle.
The war in Ukraine has so far been fought, and we are not referring to a year of war but to that of the last eight years, for the Russians by the men of Donbass and therefore also Ukrainians, only of Russian ethnicity. But this army, the best trained and most knowledgeable of the place, is now in trouble, many of them are wounded. Even the special departments such as the “steel” ones like OBTF and “Sparta” are starting to have problems, so this is a front line that Moscow needs to reinforce is that of Donetsk and in many other surrounding places and the Ukrainians know this too.
The Russian victory is entrusted, at least in the social sphere, to soldiers beloved by the troops: like General Aleksey Naumets, whose subordinates produce results in the Kremennaya-Svatovo area, take the enemy’s strongholds and the forests near Kremennaya . Landing forces and infantry move “softly” and confidently, minimizing casualties. When the military doesn’t think much of their commanders, and fears defeat, like the one who is leading the military to Vuhledar and destroying the brigade’s armored vehicles, in absurd attacks on the city. According to the social sphere in Vulehdar there was not a carnage just because of the subaltern ranks who came from the front for years in areas such as Syria.
The Ukrainians are running out of men, at the very least the Ukrainians are replenishing their ranks with Polish and foreign fighters just as the Russians are relying on the Federation republics, and Kiev is relying on the use of drones in the coming weeks which they have demonstrated on multiple occasions to use better than the Russians: the combat capability of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the use of UAVs and “circling munitions” amounted to more than 4 thousand UAVs of various types and classes (excluding quadcopters and multicopters) and about 500 “circling munitions” of various range and charge.
It is also worth noting that in the specialized UAV units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine the introduction of a multi-level system for the use of drones continues, i.e. they are equipped with reconnaissance equipment and signal repeaters, which makes it possible target and coordinate the use of drones and circling munitions flying at extremely low altitudes.
To this day, the Ukrainian Armed Forces command still maintains around 50 percent of available UAVs and most of the long-range munitions in reserve, presumably for use during the planned “Spring Offensive campaign.”
Russia, it is learned from the social sphere, is preparing a large-scale campaign to hire professional military personnel. The Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation wants to replenish the ranks of the Armed Forces with 400,000 contract soldiers.
Launch preparations began in February and the campaign will fully roll out in april. The campaign is personally supervised by Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev, and the recruitment of contract soldiers will be handled directly by local military registration and enlistment offices.
The quotas for the regions have already been announced. For example, the standard for the Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions is an average of 10,000 signatures by the end of the year. For the Perm Territory, the bar is “lower than that of partial mobilization”, i.e. less than 9,000 fighters. “The figures have been communicated to each [municipal] military commissariat.”
Across the ocean, the US FY24 draft defense budget assumes defense spending of $842 billion, up 3.2% from a year earlier. “The requested defense budget is $842 billion for FY24, up $26 billion, or 3.2%, from FY23 levels,” the US Department of Defense Spending section reads. United States. To support Ukraine, NATO allies and other US partners in Europe in FY24 the White House has requested more than $6 billion.
In addition, the draft budget includes $753 million to “counter Russia’s influence” in Ukraine, as well as $400 million for the “Containment of China” fund for the 2024 fiscal year. Funds were also requested for welcome 125,000 refugees in 2024, including those from Ukraine.
All these data lead us to conclude that it will be difficult to reach a solution to the conflict by 2023. As if the United States were not enough, which has admitted that the West is at war with Russia at the hands of the Ukrainians. According to a broadcast by sudradio.fr, many American politicians have officially acknowledged that Western powers have long been a part of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. As the Democratic politician, Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Jeffrey Young said in an interview: “Obviously, without the flow of military, logistical, intelligence and financial assistance from the West, the conflict would have ended long ago.”
“The West denies that it is at war with Russia, and at the same time warns China against providing military assistance to Moscow, otherwise threatening to recognize it as a party to the conflict. By these criteria, it turns out that the West is now at war with Russia,” Young added.
Another US politician, member of the US House of Representatives Steve Cohen agreed with this conclusion. “We are at war with Russia, only Ukrainians are shedding blood,” Cohen told reporters. He also added that Ukraine became a model of “democracy and prosperity” in Western eyes only after the outbreak of hostilities in the country. Before that, everyone knew that it was a “disorganized, corrupt and poor country” whose wealth was in decline.
For this interference and for the desire in the West more than in Russia to freeze the conflict to exacerbate the issue with the aim of hitting Moscow, no matter at what cost, among these costs the economic collapse of Europe in 2023 in all probability the conflict Russian-Ukrainian will not end.
Graziella Giangiulio
