Rising tensions: Russian advance challenges Ukrainian resilience
The end of the stalemate on the front in the Russia-Ukraine conflict has been announced by American military officials and intelligence personnel, as reported by "The New York Times". This is due to the increasingly intense actions of Vladimir Putin's forces, which are gaining the upper hand. Once again, there is concern about whether Kyiv will endure the winter.
As recently as the summer of 2024, US government analysts insisted that it was unlikely that Russia would make significant progress in Ukraine in the coming months.
They claimed that "poorly trained troops are struggling to break through Ukrainian defences." However, as the NYT notes, this assessment turned out to be incorrect. Russian forces have already taken over more than a third of the territory occupied by the Ukrainian army in the Kursk region and have significantly increased the number of drone attacks.
The new report, however, leaves no doubt about the errors in earlier forecasts. NYT cites the opinion of a high-ranking US military official in it.
The Russian military, which consistently made mistakes during the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, is now a thing of the past, the publication reads. Now, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have developed significantly and are on the move.
For this reason, some American intelligence services and military officials do not believe in Ukraine's ability to stop the Russian offensive. In their opinion, it is not about shortages in weapon supplies, which the Ukrainian army is still requesting. The real problem is a lack of soldiers willing to fight on the Ukrainian side.
According to a Pentagon interlocutor cited by NYT, Ukraine has enough soldiers to fight for another six months, up to a year at most. After that time, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will face a significant shortage of soldiers.
However, Russia is facing a similar problem. If US support in Ukraine can be maintained until then, the soldiers might be able to leverage the shortages in the Russian army and tip the scales of victory in their favour.
