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The conclusion of the entire Russian invasion of Ukraine is that Russian President Vladimir V. Putin failed to achieve any of his strategic goals in launching the brutal and unprovoked attack, a senior defense official in the background said today. & # xD;
Putin launched the attack on his peaceful neighbor on February 24, and aimed a lightning-fast attack on the Ukrainian capital of Kiev with the idea of removing Ukraine’s leadership and installing a puppet regime.
It failed and the Russians withdrew from the region near the capital and moved the troops east. “On September 1 … President Putin demanded that the entire Donetsk province be under Russian control by September 15,” the official said. “But Putin’s forces clearly failed to deliver.”
At the same time, Ukrainian forces launched a counter-offensive against the region north and east of its second city of Kharkiv. That offensive was successful, with Ukrainian troops recapturing an area the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined, the official said.
The Russian military is having a hard time recruiting personnel to fight in the misleading war against Ukraine. The Ukrainian military has caused significant casualties among the Russian forces that invaded the country and “we are seeing the Kremlin increasingly struggling to find new recruits to fill their thin ranks, and the Russians are behaving so badly that news from the province of Kharkiv have inspired many Russian volunteers to refuse combat, “the official said.
The official cited a video circulating on social media of a representative of private Russian military contractor Wagner, trying to persuade Russian prisoners to join the fight in Ukraine. “We believe this is part of Wagner’s campaign to recruit over 1,500 convicted criminals, but many are refusing,” the official said. “Our information indicates that Wagner suffered high casualties in Ukraine, especially and unsurprisingly among young and inexperienced fighters.”
On the contrary, the Ukrainian army has high morale as it continues to move forward very deliberately.
In the eastern part of the country, Ukraine now controls its entire territory, west of the Oskil River. The official said Ukrainians liberated more than 300 cities in Kharkiv province.
A senior military official said Ukrainians are still making “deliberate progress” against the Russians in the south. The Russians pushed into the Donbass region, but the advances amount to only “a few hundred meters”.
Russian forces have reacted but are attacking civilian infrastructure rather than military targets. US officials see these attacks as retaliation rather than any kind of military sense.
“We all know this fight is far from over,” said the senior defense official. Ukraine has made tremendous progress against a much larger enemy. But Ukraine must have the support of the United States, allies and partners to continue its effort.
