By Mark Trevelyan

LONDON (Reuters – Russia has reframed the war objectives in Ukraine so that President Vladimir Putin can claim a victory despite a terrible campaign during which his army suffered embarrassing setbacks.

Russia attacked the neighboring country by sea, air, and land on Feb. 24, pushing as far to the capital Kyiv. Its forces had been inactive for many weeks. The attack was claimed by the West and Ukraine as a plot to depose President Volodymyr Zilenskiy’s democratic government.

A senior military officer stated on Friday that the true objective of the operation was to liberate the Donbass, eastern Ukraine. For the past eighteen years, Russian-backed separatists had been fighting the Ukrainian Army.

Sergei Rudskoi of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operational Directorate stated, “The major objectives of stage one of the operation are generally achieved.”

“The Armed Forces of Ukraine’s combat potential has been significantly decreased, which… allows us focus our main efforts on reaching the ultimate goal of liberating Donbass.”

Donbass is where Putin accuses Ukraine of “genocide”, but has not provided any evidence. It has been a central part of Moscow’s list of grievances about Ukraine for a long time.

Moscow might have been able to mount a more focused offensive if the goal of capturing Donbass was achieved from the beginning. This would save it the expense and loss associated with invading Ukraine’s north, south, and west.

“Obviously, they have totally failed in all they’ve tried to do. So now they are trying to redefine what it means so that they can claim victory,” stated Ben Hodges who was a commander in U.S. military forces in Europe and now works for Center for European Policy Analysis.

They don’t have the capability to sustain large-scale, sustained offensive operations. Their logistic problems are obvious to everyone. They have serious manpower problems and resistance that is far beyond what they can imagine.

HIGH COSTS

Russia’s special military operation has incurred high costs. Rudskoi (the General Staff official) on Friday admitted 1,351 deaths of Russian soldiers. Ukraine says the actual figure is 10 times greater.

Oryx is an official Dutch military blog. This blog records the equipment and losses of both sides. The blog has confirmed that Ukraine lost 540 pieces of hardware, which includes 77 tanks.

Each side claims that it has destroyed a certain amount of enemy equipment, but they don’t confirm their own losses.

Russia’s offensive was stopped by the United States, which resorted instead to bombing cities with artillery and rockets.

Nick Reynolds, an analyst in land warfare at RUSI’s think-tank in London said “The progress is stalled or even very slow at this point.”

“Its original strategy has been completely abandoned. The original strategy of the group was to simply move the military in to the country and decapitate or collapse the Ukrainian government.

Russia still has a lot of work to do in order to reach its modest goal of driving Ukraine’s forces from the east. According to the defense ministry, Russian-backed forces have 93% control over Luhansk and 54% in Donetsk.

Meanwhile, Ukraine seems more confident.

Oleksandr Grzevich (Deputy Chief of Ground Forces) stated Friday that Russia would require three to five more troops in order to capture Kyiv. Russia is being impeded by its attempts to build a land corridor on the south coast, to link annexed Crimea to Donbass.

Hodges said that Hodges was a former U.S. general and asked whether it would now be courageous enough to confront its fears about a Russian escalation using nuclear or chemical weapons. This would not offer Moscow any tactical advantage.

According to him, Kyiv can move from defense to attack by having more equipment like long-range rockets, artillery, and drones.

He said, “We are only dispersing support to Ukraine rather than flooding them.” It feels as if we are trying to prevent them being defeated, but we don’t want them to win.”