In an interview with Fanpage.it, General Vincenzo Camporini takes stock and comments on the withdrawal of troops from Kyiv announced by the Ukrainians but denied by Moscow: “The Russians are having difficulties bringing the necessary supplies to the troops in the first line”.
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According to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, Russia was forced to withdraw troops from Kyiv after suffering significant casualties. The withdrawal, it was declared, “significantly reduced” the intensity of the Russian advance, forcing Moscow to transfer to Belarus the units hardest hit during the offensive to restore their combat capability. Deputy Defense Minister of Ukraine Hanna Malyar also said that the enemy is regrouping its forces “but it has nowhere to advance in Ukraine”. But how is it really? Is the Ukrainian resistance really making the Russian attack difficult? The Russian Defense Ministry has released a video showing a convoy of armored vehicles said to be around forty kilometers from the capital Kyiv.
We spoke to him about it General Vincenzo CamporiniSecurity and Defense Manager of Action, former Air Force and Defense Chief of Staff and former President of the Center for Advanced Defense Studies and former Vice President of the IAI (Institute of International Affairs), to which he is now Scientific Advisor.
General Vincenzo Camporini
General, Ukrainian army says heavy casualties have forced Russia to withdraw troops from around Kyiv. How is this step to be interpreted?
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We should first check what is really happening, because the Russians deny the retreat, saying on the contrary that a motorcade is on its way to Kyiv and that it is 40 km away. Recently they say they are 25 km from the capital, as an advance it seems pretty bizarre to me. But beyond that, I believe there are difficulties on the ground, as evidenced by the fact that not much progress has been made if we omit the southern and southeastern areas, the strip along the Sea of Azov that leads from Crimea to Rostov Oblast. There are certainly operational and logistical problems: From today’s perspective, it seems indisputable that it is difficult to provide the frontline troops on the Russian side with the necessary supplies. It will be crucial to understand what is happening over the next few hours as the situation is very volatile.
But is it true that the Russian armed forces are reorganizing and are currently unable to advance in any direction?
If this is true around Kyiv and around Mykolaiv, I believe instead that the Russian offensive in the eastern area, in the Donbass, is bringing some results, albeit very slowly. The fact that Mariupol is still resisting means that the difficulties have not been completely overcome. This is, among other things, the area where the Russian General Staff itself has declared that its main action is moving. There are certainly troop movements, there is the Russian attempt to crush Ukrainian forces on the ground, and the Ukrainians are also attempting the pincer maneuver in the northeast.
Ukraine said Russia is taking “Iskander” missiles to Kalinkavichy in southeastern Belarus. What does this movement mean?
The “Iskander” missiles are medium and shortrange ballistic missiles with a maximum range of about 500 km, which can be armed with various warheads, including the nuclear warhead. The tactical nuclear warhead can also be used, but that is not the case as no one is currently considering using tactical nuclear weapons on the ground. The Iskander have excellent operational capability, they are difficult to intercept as they arrive as ballistic missiles at very high speeds. The fact that they are being used at this stage may also indicate that Russia is trying to use everything it has, because the funds that have been allocated to the expeditionary force so far were not enough. This is also evidence that the Ukrainian resistance is moving effectively, and it means that the Russians were unable to achieve the results they planned. A few days ago we learned that some Iskanders have been launched but not heavily used yet.
Are we entering another phase of the conflict, a war of attrition?
We are already in a war of attrition as neither contender manages to have a crushing head start on the ground. The Russians believed they would achieve this quickly, and they were wrong. For their part, the Ukrainians have to gradually recover, an operation that is far from immediate: they are succeeding in the south, precisely around Mykolaiv, in the north near Kyiv, while in the east the situation is certainly more critical. But it’s a war that’s dragging on now, the idea of a blitzkrieg has long since faded.
Should we wait for the negotiations scheduled for tomorrow in Istanbul? Could there be any news?
The fact that they are in Turkey shows that there is a modicum of openness, because not much could be expected from negotiations taking place on the territory of an ally of the aggressor like Belarus. Well, if there’s this search for territory that can be neutral or in any case not overtly deployed, that could be a positive fact. Unfortunately, we always have to use the conditional because the situation can change at any time. But the fact that Lavrov opened up the possibility of negotiations in Belgrade could be another indication that things might be moving.
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Defense Minister Guerini today recalled the urgent need to increase military spending, also to renew the Italian armed forces. Do our weapon systems need to be replaced?
There are some skills that have ceased to be considered a priority in the last twenty years, while the events we are witnessing show us that they are still of great importance. I’m mainly referring to armored forces and heavy artillery. There are other capacities that we have on a qualitative level, but we certainly need an increase on a quantitative level. We need a greater number of systems, although the ones we have are technologically adequate, but not numerically. Then there is another serious and not easy to solve problem that concerns the recruitment of personnel, because in our social structure we have a rather rigid recruitment, which means that military personnel are aging. Those who practice this profession must maintain a physical capacity that age sometimes does not allow them. It is therefore necessary to reduce the average age of the workforce through various measures, which in any case involve costs.