by Paolo Valentino
Kyiv fears new attacks from the north. The Pentagon: “The army lacks ammunition”
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
BERLIN – The shadow play of the Kremlin continues. Vladimir Putin reappeared yesterday. After three appointments that were traditional and important to him were canceled – in sequence the year-end press conference, the live radio broadcast in which he answered questions from the Russians and last but not least his participation in the ice hockey game on Red Square – the Russian President spent Friday the all day at the headquarters of the so-called “Special Military Operation” and had his picture taken with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov. Also present at the talks was General Sergei Surovikin, who has been in charge of military operations in Ukraine since October.
“We will listen to the operational leaders and their suggestions on our short- and medium-term actions,” Putin said in the short film aired on Russian TV. The departure of the Kremlin chief appears to have been deliberate in order to silence speculation about the health of Putin, which has been circulating again in recent days. According to some Telegram channels, he died in an accident at his Moscow residence on December 5. when he tripped over a step. This would have been the reason for abandoning the three events.
The visit to the headquarters, the location of which remains unknown, follows alerts from the Ukrainian military authorities that Moscow is preparing a new offensive after the series of defeats suffered in recent months that have forced its forces to withdraw from many areas. especially from the city of Kherson.
It was the commander of the Ukrainian army, General Valeriy Saluzhnyi, who predicted that the Kremlin could attack at the beginning of the new year, thanks to the 200,000 soldiers sent to the front after the partial mobilization decided by Putin. “I have no doubt that they will try to take Kyiv again,” the officer said, adding that the offensive could start from Belarus. The fact is that there are currently thousands of Russian reservists on Belarusian territory, where they are participating in what the Kremlin itself calls “intensive military training”. Vladimir Putin is already planning a visit to Minsk tomorrow, where he will meet his loyal ally, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
But the Ukrainian warnings have met with skepticism from many analysts. Not only because since October, when Surovikin was appointed, Russian troops seem to have been mainly focused on defence, not least with the digging of dozens of kilometers of trenches along the banks of the Dnieper River. But also because the American secret service, as Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said, “at the moment has no indication that the Russians are about to move towards Kyiv.”
Which, of course, doesn’t mean that Moscow isn’t continuing its scorched-earth strategy, with continuous bombing raids aimed at destroying Ukraine’s infrastructure and the power grid in particular, including under heavy shelling on Friday. According to Pentagon estimates, reported by the BBC, “If we continue at this pace, Russia could run out of reliable ammunition as early as the first months of 2023.”
December 17, 2022 (change December 17, 2022 | 19:31)
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