There will be no peace deals, no ceasefires and no surrenders in Ukraine. The next two months will bring what US defence officials have called “a knife fight” in the area the Ukrainian army call “The Joint Forces Operation” (JFO). We know this region better as Donbas.
For eight years the two sides have fought there, with Russian regular army elements supplementing separatist units. Now, after defeat in Kyiv, Russian forces are redeploying there to take on Ukraine’s best and most experienced units. The battles to come will resemble more the manoeuvre battles of the second world war than those fought around the cities of Kyiv, Mariupol and Sumy in the six weeks the war has raged so far. Nonetheless, the Russians are unlikely to prevail.
After their recent defeat in the north, Russia has made some significant changes. Most importantly, an overall commander has been appointed. The importance of this is not the identity or experience of the individual Colonel General Alexander Dvornikov – rather it is the fact that the Russians will have a single command staff to co-ordinate and attempt to achieve a single focused and ostensibly realistic operational objective, instead of three separate competing ones in the north, south and east.
