THE RUSSIAN ARMY has said that the “first stage” of its military campaign in Ukraine is now over and troops would now focus on the complete “liberation” of the country’s eastern Donbas region.
“The main tasks of the first stage of the operation have been completed,” said Sergei Rudskoi, chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of Russia’s armed forces.“The combat potential of Ukraine’s armed forces has been significantly reduced, which allows (us) — I emphasise once again — to focus our main efforts on achieving the main goal — the liberation of Donbas.”
He said Russian forces had “practically” destroyed Ukraine’s air force and anti-aircraft defences as well as the navy.
At the same time, Rudskoi said the Russian army did not rule out attacks on cities, claiming that originally such assaults had not been planned.
“Initially, we did not plan to storm them in order to prevent destruction and minimise losses among personnel and civilians,” he told reporters.
“Although we do not rule out such a possibility, however, as individual groupings complete their assigned tasks… our forces and means will concentrate on the main thing — the complete liberation of Donbas,” he said, referring to eastern Ukraine.
Senior military officials addressed journalists in Moscow on the 30th day of the Kremlin’s military campaign in Ukraine.
The Russian defence ministry updated its losses in Ukraine to 1,351 soldiers, adding that 3,825 soldiers had been wounded.
The announcement is being treated with skepticism by military analysts however.
Security specialist Tom Clonan believes it’s an example of the “spectacular failure” of the invasion.
“They’ve been in the field for a month and they have failed to take any major objectives,” Clonan told The Journal.
“The first phase, which is the invasion, and the strike phase have failed. So that’s that’s what I would understand their position to be – they have failed.”
As Russian forces were roughly 200km away from Ukraine’s capital Kyiv at the outset of the war, they should have been able to take it within days but instead its army has moved at a glacial pace of around 3km a day, Clonan said.
“This is a full Russian army, with all of its support and logistics units and it’s armoured reconnaissance and tanks.”
While Russia has said it will now focus on the Donbas region, Clonan is concerned that Russia may resort to increasingly brutal tactics in parts of Ukraine where it has struggled to gain ground.
“What I’d be concerned about is that they could step up their airstrikes and missile attacks throughout Ukraine.
“I don’t think that they’ll be able to mobilise half of the Russian military to go across the border to Ukraine, that would be strategically a huge mistake.
“So the only thing that can really do a step up that air missile campaign, pivot towards the west, and that brings with it the escalation of a war with Nato.
“They could hit a Nato target, either deliberately or accidentally, and that will be a declaration of war and the declaration of war on Europe.
“Or, as has been suggested by Biden, if Russia is getting frustrated and getting desperate, they might decide to use chemical weapons against the defenders and civilians dug in in basements in places like Mariupol or Sumi.”
With reporting by AFP
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