The Kremlin is conducting ground offensive operations at an inopportune moment to take advantage of Western confusion over aid to Ukraine.
Contrary to common sense, the Russian Defense Ministry decided on October 10 to go on the offensive in the Avdeevsky direction and in other sectors of the front in Donbass. Against this background, the Ukrainian Armed Forces began to curtail active counter-offensive operations.
Analysts from Institute for the Study of War analyzed the situation with Putin’s order to launch an offensive before the winter of 2023.
The Kremlin decided not to shelve preparations for the offensive in Donbass. Putin not only did not want to wait until the spring of 2024, but the winter of 2023, when weather conditions were favorable for conducting ground offensive operations.
Analysts are confident that this was an opportunistic reaction by the Kremlin to weakening military support for Ukraine from the West. The Kremlin organized an information operation aimed at containing military aid to Ukraine. The Russian Defense Ministry decided that if the Russian army seizes the initiative on the battlefield, the West will begin to think even more about the advisability of allocating finances and military assistance to Kyiv.
Experts believe that the Kremlin is conducting military operations in Ukraine not to achieve specific combat goals, but to shape Western behavior regarding further support for Ukraine.
It is possible that the Kremlin is conducting offensive operations to achieve its internal political goals, in order to justify the war itself.
ISW does not offer an assessment of the underlying objective of ongoing Russian offensive operations, but agrees with the US intelligence assessment that Russia has suffered very heavy losses without achieving operationally significant gains or creating the conditions to achieve such gains.
We previously reported that from October to December 2023, enemy troops lost up to 13 thousand troops on the Avdeevka-Novopavlovka line alone.
Let us remind you that American intelligence has declassified new information on the losses of Putin’s army from February 2022 to November 2023.
Author: Dmitry Myronenko
2023-12-13 06:07:21
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