Russia readying 500K troops to launch assault in 10 days

Russia is preparing to launch a powerful new offensive in 10 days’ time involving up to 500,000 conscripts and thousands of pieces of military equipment with the aim of capturing the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, according to Kyiv’s military officials.

Ukrainian officials and foreign analysts have been predicting for weeks that the Kremlin was gearing up for a decisive push to seize the battlefield initiative from Kyiv’s forces in the hope of scoring a major victory in time for the Feb. 24 first anniversary of the war.

A Ukrainian military official speaking to Foreign Policy magazine on condition of anonymity said, “We expect in the next 10 days a new, huge invasion.”

According to the official, Russia has already amassed an estimated 1,800 tanks, 3,950 armored vehicles, 2,700 artillery systems, 810 Soviet-era multiple rocket launch systems, 400 fighter jets and 300 helicopters.

Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov said in a recent interview with a French TV network that Russia is preparing to throw 300,000 to 500,000 soldiers into battle in the coming weeks.

Although the new recruits are believed to be poorly trained and equipped, they have a significant superiority in numbers on their side — a crude tactic that has succeeded in stalling Ukraine’s counteroffensive, albeit at a colossal cost in lives.

Close to 200,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded since the start of the war, the New York Times reported, citing US and other Western officials.

According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense’s latest estimates, more than 135,000 enemy combatants have been killed.

“They don’t pay attention to any casualties or losses on the (battlefield),” the unnamed Ukrainian military official said while discussing the coming offensive, which is anticipated to be more devastating than the initial invasion a year ago.

Experts are predicting that the spring onslaught will focus on the contested Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east, which have seen some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said Wednesday that enemy soldiers were trying to capture the city of Kreminna and the nearby village of Bilohorivka.

“We are repulsing all their attempts to break through,” Haidai said in televised remarks. “The enemy is having no success.”

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, DC-based think tank, wrote in a recent update that Russian military command may be rushing to launch a large-scale offensive to conquer Donetsk “in an unrealistic timeframe and likely without sufficient combat power.”

The Kremlin is in a race against time to turn the tide of war in its favor before the first battle tanks and long-range missiles pledged to Kyiv by the US and European countries begin arriving in Ukraine, which could be as early as March.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has redoubled his efforts in recent weeks to convince allies to supply fighter jets to Kyiv — a proposition that until this week had been a taboo topic among Western leaders fearful of being dragged into a direct confrontation with Russia.

During a surprise trip to Europe Wednesday, Zelensky begged British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to provide warplanes. He later met with France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Olaf Scholz in Paris to discuss Ukraine’s urgent military needs.

At a press conference in Brussels Thursday, Zelensky revealed that he had heard from several unnamed EU leaders that they were ready to come through with fighter jets.