We’re seeing a new side to the Russian military in Ukraine: soldiers on motorbikes hurtling across no man’s land, relying on their speed to escape Ukrainian artillery fire… but not always able to outrun the swarms of drones hovering above the battlefield and picking off combatants one by one.
47th Mechanized Brigade/CBS News
George Barros of the Institute for the Study of War said this was one of several new tactics Russia has used to seize 430 square miles of territory over the past nine months.
“The Russians currently have the advantage,” Baros said. “They are free to choose where, when, the tempo and the intensity of their offensive operations along a 600-mile front… This puts them within striking distance of some very important land lines of communication.” [and] It is a supply corridor connecting some of the most important major cities in the defense of eastern Ukraine.”
But the price Russia is paying for these advances is steep: According to Baros, the Russian military is losing between 25,000 and 30,000 soldiers each month, and by one estimate, Russia has suffered a staggering 500,000 casualties since the invasion began in February 2022.
But Putin has made up for those losses by pursuing a ruthless long-term war strategy that involves endless attacks to weaken Ukraine’s resistance and threats of nuclear war against countries that support Ukraine.
“President Putin understands that the difference between winning and losing this war is whether or not his allies are in favor of supporting Ukraine,” Baros said.
The United States suffered a major setback when arms exports to Ukraine were halted for five months for political reasons.
The delay comes just as the Russian Air Force is set to launch a devastating new weapon. “The Russians discovered they could attach these inexpensive glide kits to their glide bombs and turn their vast stockpiles of Soviet-era zero-gravity bombs into precision weapons,” Baros said.
The bombs would sprout wings in flight and glide to targets 30 to 40 miles away, guided by GPS signals, but the Russian pilots would be outside the range of Ukrainian air defenses. “Using their air power and 500-kilogram bombs, the Russians could heavily attack and destroy Ukrainian trenches, bunkers, positions and fortifications,” Baros said.
Thousands of bombs and millions of shells turned the battlefield into a cratered moonscape, one of which turned into a deathtrap when a Ukrainian drone attacked a Russian tank.
Russia has tried to protect its tanks with additional layers of armor, but every countermeasure has a counter, and American weapons are once again flowing into Ukraine.
“Russia has no chance of winning in Ukraine unless it can convince the United Nations to continue supporting Ukraine,” Baros said.
Like any war, it comes down to will. “Political will is the determining factor in this war,” Baros said. “It doesn’t matter what happens on the battlefield. Territory can be lost, ceded and retaken. But if we decide to abandon the Ukrainians, they will lose. Frankly, the center of gravity of this war is not on the battlefield in Ukraine, but what happens here in Washington. It was in World War II and it’s still today.”
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Story Producer: Mary Walsh. Editor: Joseph Frandino.
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