02 March 2023 , 14:30
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Russian President Vladimir Putin may sustain the horrific death rate on his troops for another three months, experts have warned.
It is believed the Russian military has resigned itself to ordering “mass suicidal attacks” on the Ukrainians, which achieve little for such a high cost in life.
A confidential assessment of Russia’s invasion claims Putin’s offensive is stuck in a rut created by shocking military weakness, failure, incompetence, death and injury.
It comes amid rising Russian losses, claimed by Ukrainian military intelligence to have topped the bloody 150,000 milestone just a year since the full-scale invasion launched.
One western expert on Putin’s Russia warns of three scenarios, the worst being Russian military action threatening more of Russia’s neighbours with attacks.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits injured soldiers to hand out medals in Kyiv on February 24 (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)The second scenario is a Ukrainian military breakthrough ending the occupation but this would demand a massive speeding up of arms delivery to Ukraine by the west.
And the third is that Putin’s invasion campaign will collapse following a “creeping Russian military stagnation and domestic loss of faith in Putin’s war.”
The latest assessment, which is provided to western governments, says: “Nowhere have the Russians been able to mass force densities to mount an effective offensive. has developed over the past few weeks is “more of the same”, i.e. grinding attrition stepped up.
A soldier warms himself beside a fire in a bunker in Donbas (Getty Images)“The Russians have so far proven unable to coordinate effectively a combined arms assault, or to provide adequate logistics support for a breakthrough.
“The Russian Army has not practised this for 30 years and it appears to be beyond their ability.
“The main ground forces’ tactic remains the near-suicidal mass infantry attack with inadequately trained troops under cover of heavy artillery.”
Ukrainian soldiers shoot their weapons during an exercise in Kharkiv (Vadim Ghirda/AP/REX/Shutterstock)The report adds that just as happened in Afghanistan when the Mujahideen were given stinger missiles by the west, Russia’s air force has given up.
Moscow has lost more than 200 warplanes in just over a year of warfare, many shot down by western-supplied ground to air missiles.
The report says:”Manned aircraft on the Russian side - continue to play a smaller role than might have been expected.
“This is undoubtedly because of the lethality of air defence missiles.
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“Russian pilots appear to be unwilling to 'close with the enemy' as they did in Afghanistan once the Mujahideen got Stinger missiles.”