The Russian military has a new look at Ukraine: infantrymen on motorcycles running through no man’s land, depending on speed to escape Ukrainian fire. . . but unable to escape the swarms of drones that fly over the battlefield and can shoot down combatants. through one.
George Barros of the Institute for the Study of War says it’s one of the new tactics Russia has used on 430 square miles of territory in the past nine months.
“At the moment, the Russians have the advantage,” Barros said. “The Russians can determine where, when, the speed of war and the intensity with which they wish to conduct offensive operations anywhere along this 600-mile front line. …This puts them within striking distance of some very vital ground lines. communications [and] home corridors linking some of the most vital giant cities that shape the backbone of the Ukrainian defense of eastern Ukraine.
But the value that Russia is paying to make those advances is very high; According to Barros, the Russians are wasting between 25,000 and 30,000 infantry soldiers per month. By some estimates, Russia has suffered around a million deaths or injuries since the invasion began in February 2022.
Yet Putin managed to make up for those losses and continue his ruthless and protracted war strategy: endless attacks aimed at weakening Ukraine’s ability to resist, along with threats of nuclear war against countries that Ukraine.
Barros said: “Putin understands that what is going to make or break this war is whether the allied states that are helping Ukraine take a look at it. “
The United States took a step back when it caused a five-month suspension of arms shipments to Ukraine.
This delay occurred at the same time that the Russian Air Force was employing a devastating new weapon. Barros said, “The Russians have discovered that they can install those reasonable r kits into bombs and turn their gigantic reserves of stupid Soviet-era gravity. bombs in a precision weapon. “
The bombs spread their wings in flight and, guided via a GPS signal, hover toward targets 30 to 40 miles away, while Russian pilots remain outside the array of Ukrainian air defenses. “They can use their air force and 500-kilogram bombs to attack and destroy Ukrainian trenches, bunkers, strongpoints and fortifications,” Barros said.
Thousands of bombs and millions of artillery shells turned the battlefield into a lunar landscape of craters. One of them was a death trap for a Russian tank when a tiny Ukrainian drone attacked it.
Russia has tried to give its tanks more layers of armor, but with every measure comes a countermeasure, and American weapons are once again flowing into Ukraine.
Barros said, “Until the Russians can convince the foreign coalition to continue to support Ukraine, the Russians have no chance of winning in Ukraine. “
As with all wars, everything depends on the will. “Political will is what is decisive for this war,” Barros said. “That’s not what happens on the battlefield; territories can be lost, ceded and recovered. But if we resolve to abandon the Ukrainians, they will lose. Honestly, the midpoint of gravity of this war is not the floor in Ukraine, yet what’s going on here in Washington, as World War II was, as it is today. “
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Story produced through Mary Walsh. Editor: José Frandino.
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