The turning point in the war has already begun as the Russians began to understand that it concerns all of them rather than rages somewhere else in the world. This was stated by the chief of the Defense Intelligence of the Defense Ministry of Ukraine, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, Ukrinform reports.
"Russians began to understand that their army is not that strong, that their air defense systems are not that good, and that the Russian army is not really capable of protecting the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territory," the head of defense intelligence said.
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According to Budanov, the Russian army is "not at all the world’s second-strongest army, and not even the fourth", and that the turning point in the hostilities has already begun.
"So retribution will come. The understanding that there will be retribution comes to people when they personally start to see and feel that the war is not raging somewhere in some other part of the world, that is right there where they are. Therefore, the turning point has already begun," the agency chief said.
At the same time, as The Guardian reports citing PA Media, Britain’s defense minister Ben Wallace stated that Russia was in a “very fragile” position.
Ben Wallace underlined that russia lost its ability to sease new territories on front lines in Ukraine.
“I spoke to my intelligence chiefs this morning before coming on, you know, Russia’s advance can be measured in metres per week, not miles. It is grinding in small parts of the country in an attempt to advance – completely opposite of the three-days special operation that it touted at the beginning of this, six months ago. ... I think we are in a position where Russia is in a very fragile position,” Britain’s defense minister told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
On whether Ukraine is realistically in a position to retake the territory that Russia still holds, Mr Wallace said: “I think Ukraine is getting itself into that position. First and foremost, Ukraine already has had throughout this the moral component, as we call it in defence, and if you look at the morale of the Ukrainian forces, it is, you know, it is leagues ahead of the Russian morale, you know, which is poorly-trained troops, etc.”
Institute for the Study of War (ISW), United States-based think tank, also gives similar estimates of a russia’s potential to gain its goals in Ukraine. According to ISW, Russian forces have lost an area larger than Denmark since the high-water mark of their invasion of Ukraine in mid-March and gained an area the size of Andorra (one percent of what they have lost) in the last 39 days.
Earlier Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu stated that Russian forces were slowing down the overall pace of their offensive operations in Ukraine ‘in a conscious effort to minimize civilian casualties’.
ISW estimates that Shoigu's statement may represent an attempt by the Russian MoD to set information conditions to explain and excuse the negligible gains Russian forces have made in Ukraine in the last six weeks. Since Russian forces resumed offensive operations following a pause on July 16 Russian forces have gained about 450.84 km2 (roughly 174 square miles) of new territory, an area around the size of Andorra.Russian forces have lost roughly 45,000 km2 of territory since March 21 (the estimated date of Russian forces’ deepest advance into Ukraine), an area larger than Denmark.
As ISW has previously assessed, Russian forces are unable to translate limited tactical gains into wider operational successes, and their offensive operations in eastern Ukraine are culminating.
As Defense Express reported earlier, the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine predicted that acute events could be expected at front-lines of russian-Ukrainian war in the nearest future. We also wrote that Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence’s chief predicted when Ukraine return to its 1991 borders.
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