WAR IN UKRAINE – If the holiday season was marked – on paper at least – by a truce in the conflict in Ukraine, the first days of 2023 are rather under the sign of change. Changes undertaken mainly by Moscow and which echo a certain impatience of the Kremlin, as we explain in our video at the top of the article.
Among the recent measures of Vladimir Putin: change the man at the head of the invasion in Ukraine. The Russian president has thus relegated Sergei Surovikin, in office for 3 months, to second place, replacing him with Valéri Guerassimov. The latter, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces for 10 years, now has the reins of the “special operation”.
In Russia or elsewhere, however, it is extremely rare to designate a Chief of Staff as responsible for a single operation. In general, the one who coordinates, anticipates, assesses the global threat, cannot be the one who commands on the ground. “The last time it happened was in 1941 during the Nazi invasion”, said a Moscow analyst on condition of anonymity to AFP. For him, the appointment of Valéri Guerassimov thus reveals that “Things don’t go as planned”.
More violent fights
In fact, after almost a year, the invasion of Russia is bogged down. What generate frustration and therefore violence? In Soledar, in the suburbs of Bakhmout, in any case, very intense fighting has been going on for several days.
“It’s a difficult phase of the war, but we will win it (…) Our fighters are bravely trying to hold our defence”said Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar this week, referring to a Russian enemy transformed into a steamroller and who “ threw all his strength into battle ».
For the military analyst Anatoly Khramchikhine, the capture of Soledar, a small town of around 10,000 inhabitants before the war, now completely destroyed, would allow Moscow, despite heavy losses, to finally brandish a military victory, after a series of humiliating setbacks. Stop losing a lot.
From the Russian point of view, Soledar is also an ideal target to cut off supplies to the Ukrainian lines defending Bakhmout.
An extended offensive?
A victory at all costs, a new team in a key position… For observers, these elements are all signs that point to the possibility that Moscow will intensify its operation.
A new type of offensive in Ukraine has been mentioned for several months and the hypothesis of a new mobilization is not excluded, after a first wave in September of some 300,000 men. For Mark Galeotti, of the British think-tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), this decision is the “confirmation, if it were needed, that serious offensives are to come”.
Does Volodymyr Zelensky fear the worst? It is in any case in this context that Ukraine reiterated its calls to its Western partners to provide it with heavy weapons and long-range missiles, ahead of a new meeting scheduled in Germany on January 20?
The Western chancelleries, for their part, are slow to respond favorably to kyiv’s requests on this point and Paris, London, Berlin and Washington have only promised tanks and other light armored vehicles at this stage.
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