Tuesday 22 November 2022

A winter of attrition in Ukraine

The war may slown down in Ukraine because of the snow and freezing temperatures but you can be sure the attrition will continue with thousands more lives lost. While the war will be neither lost nor won by either side in the months ahead, I think it's fair to say that the Ukrainian military is better trained, better equipped, and certainly more motivated to make progress in the winter months. They have been provided with western winter-weather combat clothing, and thousands of Ukrainian troops have already been and are continuing to be trained in a number of European countries, including the UK. They are geared up in every sense of the word for winter fighting conditions. Whereas the Russians, or certainly most of the 300,000 or so newly mobilised troops, are ill-equipped, poorly trained and lacking in any form of motivation, discipline or capability. It's good news for the Ukrainians but a shameful situation for Putin and his military chiefs who have blindly sent unwilling reservists into battle to face death or injury. They will achieve nothing but their own humiliation. No doubt Putin will continue with his daily shelling of Ukraine's energy infrastructure to try and freeze the population into submission. But somehow I think Putin will fail because the Ukrainian people will survive even the most extreme conditions if they can believe that at some point in the not too distant future the Russians will be driven out. In the meantime, the better trained and better equipped Ukrainian troops will not only survive the winter but will push the Russians further back towards the Russian border.

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