Russian troops unlikely to make significant gains in coming months
Russia is unlikely to seriously advance in the coming months, according to British intelligence. (Photo:General Staff)
Russia is unlikely to achieve its strategic goals in Ukraine or even to make significant advances in the next few months, the UK’s Defense Intelligence said in its regular daily Ukraine report on Twitter on Dec. 12.
Kremlin spokesperson Dimitry Peskov rearticulated the main goals of the “special military operation: on Dec. 8, the intelligence’s update reads.
“Special military operation” is the propaganda term the Kremlin uses to hide the scale and nature of its war on Ukraine from the Russian public.
One of Russia's main goals is the “protection” of people in the Donbas and in the south-east of Ukraine, Peskov claimed. He also said Russia would have to do a lot of hard work on the “liberation” of those areas.
Based on these comments, UK experts assess that Russia’s current minimum political objectives in the war against Ukraine remain unchanged.
Russia is likely still aiming to gain complete control over Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson oblasts. The Russian military commanders prioritise advancing deeper into Donetsk Oblast.
However, Russia is unlikely to generate an effective striking force to retake these areas and hence to achieve its goals in the near future, UK intelligence said.
"Russian ground forces are unlikely to make operationally significant advances within the next several months," the intelligence said in summary.
On Dec. 9, the U.S.-based Institute of the Study of War concluded that the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is trying to mislead the West by talking about different goals of the Russian war against Ukraine.
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