Russia has 14 days to break Ukrainian resistance: report
Russian troops facing fierce opposition by Ukrainian forces may only be able to sustain their onslaught for another 10 days to two weeks before their situation deteriorates due to dwindling equipment and manpower, according to a new report Tuesday.
The Daily Mail, citing defense sources in the United Kingdom, reported that Ukraine’s defenders have the Russian army “on the run” and predicted that “the strength of Ukraine’s resistance should become greater than Russia’s attacking force” in a matter of days.
Despite Western predictions before the war that the Russian army would quickly overrun Ukraine, Moscow has only managed to capture one major city since the invasion began on Feb. 24.
A US defense official said Monday the Ukrainians have “effectively struck at the Russian logistics and sustainment capabilities.”
“As we’ve said all along, they’ve been quite creative here,” the official told reporters. “They’re not simply going after combat capability — tanks and armored vehicles and shooting down aircraft. Although they’re doing all that, they are also deliberately trying to impede and prevent the Russians’ ability to sustain themselves.”
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky noted the difficulty Moscow is having Tuesday, praising “our brave defenders” for “continu[ing] to inflict devastating losses on Russian troops.”
“Soon the number of downed helicopters of Russia will reach hundreds of units. They have already lost 80 warplanes. Hundreds of tanks and thousands of other units of equipment. In 19 days, the Russian army has lost more in Ukraine than in two bloody and years-long wars in Chechnya. For what?” Zelensky said in an address to the Ukrainian people Tuesday.
The Ukrainian president, hailed as a hero for rallying his people to stand up and fight, called on Russian troops to surrender, pointing out that they are fleeing the battlefields and abandoning equipment.
“If you surrender to our forces, we will treat you the way people are supposed to be treated: As people, decently. In a way you were not treated in your army. And in a way your army does not treat ours. Choose!” he said in the message.
Zelensky adviser Oleksiy Arestovich suggested late Monday the war could come to an end within weeks.
“We are at a fork in the road now,” he said. “There will either be a peace deal struck very quickly, within a week or two, with troop withdrawal and everything, or there will be an attempt to scrape together some, say, Syrians for a round two and, when we grind them too, an agreement by mid-April or late April.”
Meanwhile, a top military adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted Monday the war against Ukraine is not progressing as expected.
“I would like to say that yes, not everything is going as fast as we would like,” said Viktor Zolotov, chief of Russia’s national guard and a member of Putin’s security council.
“But we are going towards our goal step by step and victory will be for us,” he added.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed Zolotov’s claims, saying Russian has sufficient firepower to take over Ukraine.
“All the plans of the Russian leadership will be achieved on time and in full,” he said.
As the invasion bogs down, most observers suggest Russia might resort to even more brutal tactics — even as its forces target hospitals, apartment buildings and other civilian structures in the capital, Kyiv, Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, and the southern port of Mariupol.
The Russian economy is reeling under sanctions imposed by the US and its Western allies, causing the value of the ruble to plummet to record lows.
Reports surfaced on Monday that Russia has reached out to China for military and economic assistance, leading White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan to confront his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi during a meeting Monday in Rome.
Peskov rejected the idea that Russia was pleading for help.
“Russia possesses its own independent potential to continue the operation,” he said. “As we said, it is going according to plan and will be completed on time and in full.”
With Post wires
CREDIT: Original Article Source
