A woman walks past giant placards with pictures of Russian President Vladimir Putin reading ‘Russia doesn’t start wars, it ends them’ and ‘We will demilitarize and denazify Ukraine’ in downtown Simferopol, Crimea, in March strive”. 4, 2022.
Stringers | AFP | Getty Images
Russia’s military strategy in Ukraine has been in the spotlight after it claimed it would change course, but after several false flags and broken promises by Russia, there are grave doubts about the Kremlin’s true intentions.
When Russia announced on Friday that the first phase of its “military special operation” (as it calls its invasion of Ukraine) was complete, there was surprise and suspicion in some circles on Friday. She said she would now refocus on Ukraine’s breakaway eastern Donbass region, home to two pro-Russian self-proclaimed republics.
“The main objectives of the first phase of the operation were generally achieved,” Sergei Rudskoy, head of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operations Directorate, said in a speech on Friday. “The combat potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been significantly reduced, which … makes it possible to focus our core efforts on achieving the main goal, the liberation of Donbass.”
The apparent change in strategy surprised analysts and was taken as an indication that Russia is planning to scale back its invasion of Ukraine.
The steadfast resistance of the country’s armed forces and volunteer fighters has turned what Russia hopes to be a quick occupation into a “grueling war of attrition” that has left Russian forces bogged down in heavy fighting in northern, eastern and southern Ukraine.
After initially defending their cities, Ukrainian forces are now launching counterattacks against Russian fighters, with a particular focus on defending the capital, Kyiv. Russian forces have only taken one city so far, Kherson, and even that is looking shaky as Ukrainian forces launch a counteroffensive to retake the southern port.
Russian military vehicles patrol March 27, 2022 in the town of Volnovakha, one of the cities hardest hit by the Russia-Ukraine war that began on February 24 in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
Sefa Karakan | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Against this background, Russia’s announcement to focus on the Donbass region appeared to be a tacit admission of the reality on the ground in Ukraine – that is, Russia has not made the expected progress and has withdrawn to save face, amid a high toll of casualties that could turn Russian public opinion against the war.
Russia’s Rudskoi says 1,351 Russian soldiers have died in the war and 3,825 have been injured. The Ukrainian military, on the other hand, claims that more than 15,000 Russian soldiers were killed in the conflict.
“I think it’s clear that Russia’s military campaign has gone spectacularly wrong,” said Timothy Ash, senior emerging markets sovereign strategist at BlueBay Asset Management, in a note on Saturday in response to the announcement.
“To say now that the focus is on Donbass and has been all along is just an exercise in saving face. Even if Russia manages to capture the entire Donbass and maybe even secure a land corridor to Crimea, it will still be a major military failure by Russia.”
No sign of a change
A few days after Russia’s announcement, however, there is little to suggest that much has changed.
Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine continued over the weekend, with explosions being heard on the outskirts of the western Ukrainian city of Lviv over the weekend. Lviv Governor Maksym Kozytskyy said there were two rocket attacks on Saturday afternoon, with the first attack hitting an oil depot, followed by three more explosions later in the day.
Lviv is at Ukraine’s opposite end from the Donbass region, where Russia claims its military campaign is now being concentrated.
The British Ministry of Defense noted in its latest intelligence assessment on Monday that there had been “no significant changes in the disposition of Russian forces in occupied Ukraine” over the past 24 hours.
Other pundits agree with Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia, who tweeted Monday that “there is little evidence on the battlefield to suggest that Putin is now focused only on the Donbass,” and reiterated his earlier doubts about Russia’s apparent change of course.
A senior Pentagon official at a briefing on Friday said it was difficult to determine whether Russia’s self-proclaimed shift in focus in Ukraine was genuine.
CNBC has asked Russia’s Defense Ministry for more information on how and when it plans to concentrate its forces in Donbass, but has yet to receive a response.
Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War said that Russia’s claim that the invasion had always focused on securing parts of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbass region was wrong.
Instead, “the comments are likely aimed primarily at a domestic Russian audience and do not accurately or fully capture current Russian war aims and planned operations,” Mason Clark, Fredrick W. Kagan and George Barros wrote on Friday.
“The Kremlin’s initial campaign was aimed at conducting airborne and mechanized operations to seize Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa and other major Ukrainian cities in order to force a change of government in Ukraine,” they noted, adding it was “inaccurate.” , believing Russia has withdrawn its targets.
“Russian forces elsewhere in Ukraine have not stopped fighting and have not completely stopped trying to advance and capture more territory. They are also attacking and destroying Ukrainian cities, conducting operations and committing war crimes inconsistent with the goals Rudskoi claims Russia is pursuing,” the analysts added.