Recent successes by Ukrainian troops make it a “realistic possibility” that the rest of Russia’s defense lines will be breached by the end of the year, although this will be extremely difficult, according to analysts at the US Department of Defense’s intelligence agency.
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After three months of slow progress, Ukraine’s counterattacks are beginning to gain momentum.
“If we were talking about this two weeks ago, I would be a little more pessimistic. Their breach through the second line of defense (..) is actually quite significant,” said Trent Moll, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) analytics division, in an interview with the Economist magazine.
An official of the Biden administration zero admitted that Ukraine has six to seven weeks until the climax of the attack, however, Mol is not so pessimistic.
In the interview, he stated that the Russian general Sergey Surovikin, who built the defense lines, and Yevgenia Prigozhin, whose fighters achieved the most tangible success for Russia in the past year, are no longer in the ranks. The former was fired, and the latter died in a plane crash.
Ukraine’s recent successes are significant, and because of these successes, Ukrainian soldiers have a “realistic possibility” – in intelligence parlance, the probability is 40-50% high – to break through the remaining Russian defenses by the end of the year, Mol explains.
He also pointed out that due to the limited amount of ammunition and the worsening of the weather, it will be “very difficult”.
At the same time, the attention of the US intelligence community is already drawn to the next fighting season.
Even if there is no breakthrough this year, the DIA believes that if Ukraine is able to expand the salient around Robotini, hold its positions and ensure the supply of ammunition, it will be well prepared for a breakthrough in 2024.
2023-09-07 18:51:53
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