Moscow forces continue to stumble on the cities of Karkhiv, in the East, and Maroupol, on the sea of Azov. According to the Pentagon, almost all soldiers deployed by the Kremlin at the borders of Ukraine entered this country.
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At the e day of the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian forces, which have targeted for the first time Dnipro, one of the main agglomerations of the country, in the center, continued to strike cities and civil infrastructures. Without progressively progressing.
In the north, the operations around Kiev remained globally in the last twenty-four hours, and the Russian army has made a new break to replenish and re-equip the units of the front line, esteem The Institute for the Study of War (Institute for the Study of War, ISW), a US Non-Governmental Analysis Cabinet. According to the Ukrainian staff, Moscow seeks to eliminate Ukrainian defenses in several localities in the west and north of the capital to “block” the city.
After a low progress in recent days, Russia should restart its offensive shortly around the Ukrainian capital, according to the British Ministry of Defense. In the East, the Russian army continues to boost the city of Kharkiv, 50 kilometers from the border with Russia, encircled and struck by intense bombings, but where defenders oppose a fierce resistance to the forces of Moscow.
“Great Russian difficulty”
Michel Goya, historian and former military, points to his Twitter account a “great Russian difficulty to organize large-scale coordinated operations” and a “total inadequacy of the Russian means with the urban combat”. It is the importance of the “Ukraine urban mesh”, with “a city of 10,000 inhabitants every 20 kilometers, one of 100,000 or more every 100 kilometers (…). Any city firmly defended with a large infantry. , motivated and well armed, is a difficult problem “.
It is in the south of the country that the Ukrainian army seems the most difficulty. Russian troops continue to besiege the port city of Maroupol, where more than 1,500 people were killed, according to the municipality. Attempts to evacuation of thousands of civilians have failed several times. The taking of this city of strategic importance would make it possible to establish a total territorial continuity between the Russian forces from the Crimea annexed by Moscow and the separatist and Russian troops of the Donbass, to the East. They could then go back along the DNIEPR and place the Ukrainian forces in front of a dilemma: fold back to the west and give up the east bank of the river and the east of the country in Moscow, or risk encircling and rupture.
Moscow lack of reserves in men
“Despite the remarkable resistance they show, the Ukrainian forces, faced with the difficulty of holding a stretched device, without operative reserve, could know a sudden collapse,” warns the chief of staff of the armies. French, General Thierry Burkhard, in a mail broadcast internally.
But this letter also identifies one of the weaknesses of Moscow: its lack of reserves in men. According to the Pentagon, the Russian army has already engaged on the Ukrainian battlefield almost all the soldiers she had deployed at the frontiers of this country before the beginning of the conflict.
Assuming that the Ukrainian army collapses, “civilian – or territorial defense – will not end, continues General Burkhard. The war could last. To the extent that the second russian level is already engaged , Moscow will be forced to deploy additional means. Then will be the question of the capacity for the Russian armies to hold such an undertaking for a prolonged way, which could open the door to more balanced negotiations, “he concludes.