The Russian army reached a “point of culmination” on around March 20. This meant that with the available supplies and reserves, it could make no further significant advances. Local actions, such as its effort to take Mariupol, continue. But on all major fronts, Russia’s advance has been largely held by ferocious and competent Ukrainian resistance. Russia has hundreds of thousands of reserves, but very few have been mobilised and neither they nor their equipment are in any way combat ready.
Russia has stalled – and Vladimir Putin is reported to have redefined Russia’s main goal as “the liberation of Donbas”. This is the region in the east of Ukraine where fighting has been continuing since 2014 and where two breakaway pro-Russian republics were recognised by the Russian president two days before the invasion. The chief of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, said on March 27 that Putin will try “to pull the occupied territories into a single quasi-state structure and try to pit it against Ukraine”.
There is always the possibility of deception – but, for the first time in an incoherent and incompetently executed war, the Russian army will have a focus. This will be centred on what the Ukrainian military calls the “joint forces operation” in the Donbas.
