Vladimir Putin is “angered by defeats” in Ukraine but more determined than ever “to claim some sort of victory regardless of the human cost”, Boris Johnson has told Ministers.
Intelligence briefings given to Cabinet Ministers described “the next phase of war as an attritional conflict that could last serval months”.
In a cabinet meeting on Tuesday government Ministers were told that the next stage of the conflict would focus on the Donbas region and last for months.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said Boris Johnson told the weekly meeting of the Cabinet that Ukraine’s position remained “perilous”.
The spokesman said ministers were briefed by a senior national security official who told them that Russia would aim to exploit its troop number advantage but “Ukraine had already shown that this was unlikely to be decisive on its own”.
There were some signs that Russia had not learned lessons from previous setbacks in northern Ukraine and there was evidence of troops being committed in a piecemeal fashion, the official said.
The official added there were reports of poor Russian morale, “with claims of some Russian troops and even units refusing to fight”.
The development came amid reports that Russian forces attacked along a broad front in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday as part of a full-scale ground offensive to take control of the country’s eastern industrial heartland.
Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces for eight years in the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas and have declared two independent republics that have been recognised by Russia.
Russia has declared the capture of the Donbas to be its main goal in the war since its attempt to seize the capital, Kyiv, failed.
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