The Russian army is suffering huge losses in the war in Ukraine, shows no signs of improving its meat grinder tactics, and is struggling to withstand an offensive that is “advancing, if at all, in meters, not kilometers.”
This was stated by the Minister of Defense of Great Britain, Ben Wallace, in a comment to the Financial Times on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
Despite fears that Russia is poised to launch a major attack on the first anniversary of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Wallace said there is no evidence of a large concentration of Russian forces similar to the February 24, 2022 attack.
The best Moscow had managed so far, according to Wallace, was a series of tentative attacks along the front line, but these attacks resulted only in heavy Russian casualties.
The British Defense Minister also noted that since the beginning of the war, more than 180,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded, and, according to US estimates, two-thirds of the armyʼs tanks have been lost. Wallace said that despite such losses, there are no signs that the Russian military has changed its approach. He referred to reports that 3,000 Russian soldiers were killed last week during a three-day attack on the city of Vuhledar in the Donetsk region.
Regarding the supply of weapons, according to Wallace, there has always been a sense of shortage on the front line of Ukraine, “but I donʼt see any signs of a strategic shortage, although there is a slight delay in the delivery of weapons.”
In addition, Ben Wallace spoke on British TV channels about the war in Ukraine, he was quoted by the British newspaper The Scotsman. He told the BBC Radio 4 program that 97% of the entire Russian army is in Ukraine, and about Russiaʼs future plans, Wallace said: “I think that since General Gerasimov was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces in Ukraine again, we have seen a kind of attempt to advance in all directions the front. However, in reality, we have not seen this concentration of a single force for a breakthrough or a major offensive — it is simply an attempt to advance.”
- On February 13, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that a new major Russian offensive in Ukraine has already begun, so the Alliance should urgently provide Ukraine with the necessary weapons before the Russian Federation seizes the initiative on the battlefield.
- The intelligence of the NATO countries said that Russia is losing at least two thousand soldiers, trying to conquer every 100 meters of territory in the east of Ukraine.