Russian forces took over a key region in eastern Ukraine this weekend, thanks in part to Moscow stepping up its coordination and war planning, according to a British intelligence assessment released Tuesday.
This change in Russian armed forces’ approach to fighting in eastern Ukraine could be the first signs of a brand new – and worrying – phase in Russia’s devastating war in Ukraine.
While Ukrainian officials initially denied losing Lysychansk, one of the last strongholds in Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian troops confirmed on Sunday that they had withdrawn from the area. Russian troops took power on Sunday and Russian President Vladimir Putin declared victory on Monday.
Russia’s success in Luhansk was no accident. While Russian troops have been bogged down for months by past missteps in the war, Russian troops are getting better at executing their war plans and operating in teams. According to intelligence, Putin may have achieved effective coordination between two major fighting groups in the Donbas.
“Unlike earlier phases of the war, Russia has probably achieved fairly effective coordination between at least two Groupings of Forces, the Central Grouping probably commanded by Colonel General Alexandr Lapin and the Southern Grouping probably under the recently appointed General Sergei Surovikin ,” said the review states.
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That’s worlds apart from the previous four months of war, in which Russian forces have failed to coordinate well, fail in logistics and planning, and actively try to sabotage their own plans of attack rather than fight like a well-oiled machine. .
It is a particularly alarming development, as Russia is unlikely to stop in Luhansk. The current US assessment is that Russia still has plans to take all of Ukraine, not just the eastern Ukrainian territories, a US ambassador told The Daily Beast.
And in the coming days, Russian troops could turn their attention to other areas of eastern Ukraine, including neighboring Donetsk.
Putin urged Russian troops to move through the region “as happened in Luhansk” and said they must “carry out their duties according to previously approved plans”.
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According to the Ukrainian General Staff, Russian troops are already targeting Siversk, Fedorivka and Bakhmut in the Donetsk region. In recent days, Russian forces have also been targeting multiple cities and regions shelling the Donetsk region, as well as Dnipropetrovsk and the regions of Mykolaiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Chernihiv and Khmelnytskyi, according to regional military administrations.
“In the direction of Bakhmut, the enemy has been shelling our troops with mortars, barrels and rocket artillery in the areas of the settlements of Kodema, Pokrovske, Zaytseve, Zalizne and Novoselivka,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Tuesday.
However, this does not mean that Russia is going to victory, according to Michael Kofman, the research program director of the Russia studies program at CNA, a national security research organization.
“This is a critical time for the Ukrainian military as these are the few months when they are low on artillery ammunition, they are trying to switch to western systems. They don’t have much of it, or they haven’t fully deployed them and they are still training on it,” Kofman told The Daily Beast. “This current phase is mainly one for Ukraine to survive and try as much as possible. taking back territory on the battlefield, which people haven’t really seen what Ukraine could do with a slightly recapitalized army and the advantage of western weapons.”
And while Russia is on the cusp of taking even more of the Donbas, the victory in Luhansk could in itself serve a purpose that has nothing to do with conquering more territory: Putin now has a message to spread at home. on successes in the so-called “special military operation”, which he claimed Russia undertook to help eastern Ukraine, including Luhansk.
Russia’s relatively rapid conquest of Lysychansk extends its control over virtually the entire territory of Luhansk Oblast, allowing it to claim significant advances against the policy objective it presented as the immediate aim of the war, which is to ‘liberate’ the Donbas,” the UK said the Ministry of Defense on Tuesday.
Putin had already met with military leadership to celebrate a “great victory” and awarded Major General Esedulla Abachev and Colonel General Alexander Lapin the “Hero of Russia” awards for taking Luhansk.
For Russia and Ukraine, the battle for Luhansk is not the end, Kofman said.
“The battle for Severodonetsk and Lysychansk may be over, but we are currently in what is essentially the build-up to what will ultimately be the battle for Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, and the big question is whether or not the Russian military can control those cities. take it,” said Kofman. said.
Putin has ordered an operational pause for Russian forces in the region, according to the Institute for the Study of War, and Ukrainian officials said they doubted Luhansk’s victory meant Russia was on track to win the war.
“It hurts a lot, but it’s not losing the war,” Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Hayday said, according to Reuters.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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