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WAR IN UKRAINE – While the Christmas season was marked – at least on paper – by a ceasefire in the conflict in Ukraine, the first days of 2023 are more about change. Changes made mainly by Moscow, reflecting some impatience on the part of the Kremlin as we explain in our video at the top of the article.
Among the recent actions of Vladimir Putin: change the man at the head of the invasion of Ukraine. With that, Russian President Sergei Surovikin, who has been in office for 3 months, moves into second place and replaces him with Valéri Guerassimov. The latter, who has been Chief of Staff of the Bundeswehr for 10 years, now has the reins of the “special operation” in his hand.
However, in Russia or elsewhere, it is extremely rare to designate a chief of staff as responsible for a single operation. In general, the one who coordinates, anticipates and assesses the global threat cannot be the one who commands on the ground. “The last time it happened was in 1941 during the Nazi invasion,” a Moscow analyst told AFP on condition of anonymity. For him, the appointment of Valéri Guerassimov shows that “things are not going as planned”.
More fierce fighting
In fact, the invasion of Russia has stalled after nearly a year. What creates frustration and thus violence? In any case, in Soledar, in the suburbs of Bakhmout, there has been intense fighting for several days.
“It is a difficult phase of the war, but we will win it (…) Our fighters are valiantly trying to hold our defenses,” Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar said this week, referring to a Russian enemy who was in a steamroller was transformed and he “threw all his might into the fight”.
For military analyst Anatoly Khramchikhine, the capture of Soledar, a small pre-war town of around 10,000 people that has now been completely destroyed, would allow Moscow to finally claim a military victory, despite heavy losses, after a series of humiliating setbacks. Stop losing a lot.
From a Russian perspective, Soledar is also an ideal target for cutting off supplies to Bakhmout’s Ukrainian defense lines.
An expanded offensive?
Victory at all costs, a new team in a key position… For observers, all these elements are signs that Moscow may intensify its operations.
A new type of offensive in Ukraine has been mentioned for several months, and the hypothesis of a new mobilization is not excluded, after a first wave in September of around 300,000 men. For Mark Galeotti of the British think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), this decision is “confirmation that serious offensives are imminent, if any are needed at all”.
Does Volodymyr Zelenskyy fear the worst? In this regard, Ukraine has in any case repeated its demands to its Western partners to provide them with heavy weapons and long-range missiles before a new meeting on January 20 in Germany?
Western law firms, for their part, have been slow to respond positively to Kiev’s pleas on this point, and Paris, London, Berlin and Washington have only pledged tanks and other lightly armored vehicles at this point.
See also on The HuffPost:
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