Over the weekend, U.S. intelligence analysts warned that Russia was massing forces for a big offensive out of now-captured Izyum all the way in which to Dnipro, a distance of over 200 kilometers. U.S. intelligence has been on level all through the battle, however to exterior observers the transfer appears completely implausible. It will be an operation equal in scope to the Russian assault on (and retreat from) Kyiv, however dealing with even longer provide strains, routed by way of even much less defensible territory, within the face of stiffer potential Ukrainian resistance and using battalions which have suffered heavy losses because the first days of the battle. There is no a part of that calculation that works out properly for Russia, even taking Ukraine’s personal heavy casualties under consideration.
That does not imply Russia will not attempt, and what we have seen from U.S. intelligence to date appears to trace that they’ve a a lot simpler window into what Russian chief Vladimir Putin’s interior circle believes than what Russian army realities really are. It’s totally attainable that Russia will try the unfathomably dangerous transfer as a result of Putin and no matter generals nonetheless have Putin’s favor are demanding that their underlings do it. And it’s totally attainable that it may finish in a shredding of these Russian forces that makes the Russian losses elsewhere pedestrian as compared. The latter risk is much more seemingly as NATO international locations abandon their earlier reticence at offering so-called “offensive” weaponry to Ukraine and are actually opening the gear floodgates.
That latest NATO gear principally hasn’t arrived but, however Ukraine has been receiving a gradual stream of the form of anti-armor weapons that had been used to such devastating impact elsewhere within the nation. New armored automobiles to exchange misplaced ones are actually on the way in which as properly. And hanging above all of it, actually, are the area’s notorious spring rains. Our most up-to-date information updates:
