The war walks towards its chronification

In the second week of March, two weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States intelligence services, so reviled after 9/11 and again admired for predicting this conflict, announced to the members of the European Union that the war could go on for quite some time. A few days later, the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, conveyed this information to his regional counterparts at the conference they held on the island of La Palma once the Cumbre Vieja volcano stopped spewing lava.

Sánchez even warned the regional leaders of the risk that it could become chronic over time and also told them that the military confrontation would host numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity. All this has materialized and when 67 days have passed since the beginning of hostilities, the conflagration is entrenched. Russia has reaped a resounding failure in its attempt to conquer the neighboring country quickly, in the image of the Nazi Blitzkrieg (lightning war). None of the initial objectives have been achieved. This has forced the Kremlin, weighed down by multiple logistical problems and Ukrainian resistance, to modify its strategy and lower expectations.

The conflict tends to drag on, according to some experts in military analysis. Several years could be necessary before signing an armistice. Victories without international recognition are likely to be announced from Moscow. Also, that it settle for the conquest of the pro-Russian territories of Donetsk and Luhansk, and that the conflict even enter a hibernation phase, as has already happened in Donbas, the industrial heartland in the east of the country presided over by Volodímir Zelenski, who it has hosted low-intensity combat for nearly two decades.

The United States maintains that Vladimir Putin could settle for the annexation of this region, as he did eight years ago with the Crimean peninsula. But the same sources assure that it will not be easy for him due to logistical problems that have even forced the Kremlin to postpone some operations in the region, partially controlled by pro-Russian separatists. This slowdown reflects, according to the Pentagon, the attempt to prevent the stretching of supply lines in the face of fierce local resistance.

Of the same opinion is the intelligence service of the British Ministry of Defense. Their reports anticipate that Russia will have to face “considerable challenges.” “They have been forced to amalgamate and redeploy disparate units depleted from failed advances in the northeast. Many of these contingents are likely to suffer from weakened morale,” he relates.

Lack of coordination

Said document also anticipates that the Kremlin “hopes to rectify the failures that have previously limited its invasion by geographically concentrating combat power, shortening supply lines and simplifying command and control.” The ministry adds that the Z forces face “serious deficiencies in tactical coordination”, a “lack of unit-level skills” and “inconsistent air support”.

According to a senior NATO official, Russia has only made “minor” and “uneven” gains because air strikes have failed to flatten ground barriers.

For all these reasons, the kyiv government maintains that the Russian assault on Donbas “has not been successful”, nor has the attempt to take the capital. “The artillery shelling only destroys homes and civil infrastructure, leaving citizens without electricity or water,” they report from the City Council, while the Ministry of Defense maintains that its troops repel the attacks in Donetsk and Lugansk without problems.

“End all life”

Zelenski himself denounced this Saturday that the objective of the Russian troops is to “end all life” in the region. “The brutal constant bombardments against residential neighborhoods are proof that he wants to desert this territory.” “It is the ideological heirs of the Nazis who have started a war against our land,” he said in a video message.

In this fight against infrastructure, the Odessa airport, in the south, was the target of a missile that destroyed its runway without causing any casualties, according to the region’s governor, Maxim Marchenko. The Russian Army said that the attack with “high-precision projectiles” was directed against a major deposit of weapons delivered to Ukraine by the United States and countries of the European Union (EU).

The day also had its usual date with terror. kyiv authorities reported the discovery of three dead men in a grave near Bucha, in the town of Myrotske, occupied for weeks by Kremlin forces. The corpses had their hands tied and their eyes bandaged, police chief Andriy Nebytov said in a statement. “The victims were tortured for a long time. In the end, each one was shot in the temple », he specified. This area adjoining the capital has become a symbol of the atrocities of the war since the discovery in early April, after the Russian withdrawal, of dozens of lifeless bodies of civilians scattered in the streets.