The overall Russian spring offensive in Ukraine is most likely getting close to its culmination, as per the experts of the US Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
“Ongoing Russian offensives along the Svatove-Kreminna line, around Bakhmut, and along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City and Vuhledar frontlines have failed to make more than incremental tactical gains in the first few months of 2023,” the ISW bulletin reads.
In particular, Russia has deployed about 300,000 mobilised personnel drafted in September 2022 to various offensives. According to the experts, if 300,000 servicemen were unable to give Russia a “decisive offensive edge”, then it is highly unlikely that adding more soldiers during future mobilisation waves will “produce a dramatically different outcome this year”.
Thus, the experts conclude that Ukraine has every opportunity to “regain the initiative” and begin conducting counter offensives in critically important sectors of the frontline.
Furthermore, representative of the Eastern Group of Forces of Ukraine’s Armed Forces Serhiy Cherevaty said on 19 March that Russia had been unable to collect enough manpower for a big offensive on Donbas. According to him, the current Russian offensive actions cannot be called a “major strategic operation”. He also emphasised that the Russian army has not yet been able to capture Bakhmut.
On 7 March, CNN reported, citing an anonymous NATO representative, that Russia had lost five times more troops than Ukraine in clashes for the besieged city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region.
The ISW previously speculated that the Russian offensive is likely to come to a halt irrespective of the future of Bakhmut. The advance will stall due to significant losses near Vuhledar, Donetsk region. Moreover, Russia’s “major offensives in the Kupyansk, Svatove, and Kreminna directions” were “failing to generate any significant successes on the frontlines”.
