![]() Each unit has roughly 1,000 troops, according to the Pentagon. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the Pentagon’s assessment. Russia has about 97 battalion tactical groups in Ukraine, largely in the east and the south, a slight increase over last week, according to a senior U.S. Instead, he predicted Russia would make “a sluggish attempt” to take control of the Donbas, including Mariupol, and a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014.Īrestovych said Russia would drag out the war while bleeding the Ukrainian economy with the aim of getting Ukraine to agree to give up that territory. Speaking late Monday in an online interview, Oleksiy Arestovych pointed to Putin’s statement that Russia would honor the memory of those who fought in World War II by doing “everything so that the horror of a global war does not happen again.” He added: “We are fighting for freedom, for our children, and therefore we will win.”Ī Zelenskyy adviser interpreted Putin’s speech as indicating that Russia has no interest in escalating the war through the use of nuclear weapons or direct engagement with NATO. “Very soon there will be two Victory Days in Ukraine,” he said in a video. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared in his own Victory Day address that his country would eventually defeat the Russians. In Warsaw, antiwar protesters splattered Russia’s ambassador to Poland with what appeared to be red paint as he arrived at a cemetery to pay respects to Red Army soldiers who died during World War II.Īs Putin laid a wreath in Moscow, air raid sirens echoed again in the Ukrainian capital. Dozens of protesters were detained around the country on Victory Day, and editors at a pro-Kremlin media outlet revolted by briefly publishing a few dozen stories criticizing Putin and the invasion. He said that unless Russia has a major breakthrough, “the balance of advantages will shift steadily in favor of Ukraine, especially as Ukraine gets access to growing volumes of increasingly sophisticated Western military equipment.”ĭespite Russia’s crackdown on dissent, antiwar sentiment has seeped through. Nigel Gould Davies, former British ambassador to Belarus, said: “Russia has not won this war. O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. “Without concrete steps to build a new force, Russia can’t fight a long war, and the clock starts ticking on the failure of their army in Ukraine,” tweeted Phillips P. Specifically, he left unanswered the question of whether or how Russia will marshal more forces for a continuing war. In the end, he gave no signal as to where the war is headed or how he might intend to salvage it. Others suggested he might declare the fighting a war, not just a “special military operation,” and order a nationwide mobilization, with a call-up of reserves, to replenish the depleted ranks for an extended conflict. – Russia pummels port of Odesa in attempt to disrupt suppliesĪfter unexpectedly fierce resistance forced the Kremlin to abandon its effort to storm Kyiv over a month ago, Moscow’s forces have concentrated on capturing the Donbas, Ukraine’s eastern industrial region.īut the fighting there has been a back-and-forth, village-by-village slog, and many analysts had suggested Putin might use his holiday speech to present the Russian people with a victory amid discontent over the country’s heavy casualties and the punishing effects of Western sanctions.
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