According to De Kruif, things are booming inside the Russian military. The former commander underlines the resignation of the Russian Deputy Defense Minister, who is responsible for the logistics supply of the Russian army. At stake, according to De Kruif, is who gets the scarcest resources. “The head of the Wagner group, Prigozhin, said he gets too little to do things in Bachmoet.” Russian bureaucracy and corruption are also at stake. “Now it only works against the Russian army.”
Resources
Furthermore, the Battle of Bachmut strains Russian resources. According to De Kruif, the fighting has gobbled up so many men and resources that the Russian offensive has largely failed to get off the ground. “A small battle with relatively little significance actually has serious negative consequences for the Russians, because they cannot start the offensive and therefore have to defend themselves.”
“A small quarrel with a small meaning has serious negative consequences for Russians”
Satellite images now show how entrenched the Russians are on the front lines in anticipation of the Ukrainian offensive. Although in principle the defender has an important advantage over the attacker, the problem for the Russians is the length of the front of 800 kilometers. And the fact that they don’t know where the Ukrainian attack came from. Despite the Ukrainian advantage of satellite imagery, De Kruif thinks the attack heralds an intensive phase with very high casualties on both sides.
air Force
Meanwhile, the Russian Air Force is barely visible. According to De Kruif, this has several causes. First, Russian pilots are relatively inexperienced because they have very few flight hours. ‘They are not used to performing in large groups in Packages with several planes.’ The Ukrainian air defense is also very strong which discourages the Russians. This forces the Russians to fly too high or too low. Either way, that’s not enough to support the Russian ground forces.
De Kruif sees a balance: the Russians dare not fly because they fear being shot down, the Ukrainians cannot fly because they have too few planes.
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