2022.5.6【The Limited Times】By: Magdalena von Zumbusch

There is currently a lot to read about heavy losses and the weakening of Russian troops. An expert warns against a distorted impression of the situation in Ukraine. Vienna - The impression widespread in the West of a severely slowed down Russian advance may not entirely correspond to reality - says an Austrian military expert at least: A Russian victory is by no means impossible, said Markus Reisner from the Theresian Military Academy in Vienna now the world

In Donetsk, Vladimir Putin's troops have recently been able to record military successes: the port city of Mariupol has been taken. The Russians are no longer focusing on the strategically important port city. It is already under Moscow's control - as are large areas and cities in southern Ukraine around the Azov Sea. After these important successes in the south-east of the country, Russia is currently concentrating again on the central Donbass - the industrial region that also consists of Luhansk and Donetsk and once had around six million inhabitants.

On the night of Monday (May 2), Russian troops tried to take the 60,000-inhabitant town of Rubishne and prepared an attack on Sievjerodonetsk, the Ukrainian general staff said. Both cities are in the Luhansk region. "The bitter truth is: Putin can win the war," according to the expert

Reisner, head of the research and military strategy department at the Theresian Military Academy in Vienna and colonel in the Austrian Ministry of Defense, assessed the current situation on the frontline of the Ukraine war as less positive for Ukraine than the majority of western experts: "We need an objective picture of the situation. It doesn't help us to pretend that the Russian attackers are in bad shape. Because that belies how the situation really is. The Russians are perfectly capable of deciding when, where and how to strike. We must not underestimate Russia.”

Reisner also expects new fighting in the south of the country in order to completely cut off Ukraine's access to the sea and thus finally get the economy in trouble.  "I expect further escalation in the Donbass in the next two to three weeks, where fighting will intensify as the Russians are now trying to make a decision to surround the Ukrainians and force them to surrender," Reisner said. “Ukraine urgently needs new weapons. Arms shipments from the West are now a race against time,” he appealed. Large shipments of weapons have not recently arrived from the USA. However, the decision on arms deliveries is also a riskier one for the European countries given the geographical proximity to the events. 

For the coming weeks, Ukraine will particularly need artillery reconnaissance radars, tanks, artillery pieces, aircraft and anti-aircraft systems such as the S-300. "But these weapons are large and relatively easy targets when transported," Reisner explained. He also gave the sobering assessment that Russia "was able to capture or destroy a not insignificant part of the arms deliveries from the West, especially anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons". Reisner reported that Russia is now publishing manuals on how the captured weapons can be used against Ukraine. Russia has now adapted the strategy of the first few weeks to the actions of Ukraine: "The problem is that the positions of the Ukrainians in this area are not as strong as on the old contact line, i.e. in the east of Kramatorsk," said Reisner. 

Ukrainian special forces are now trying to ambush the Russians in the Donbass. “It had worked elsewhere for the first six weeks, but now the Russians are prepared and Russian special forces are hunting down Ukrainian special forces and, unfortunately, quite often destroying them. This also means that the supply lines for the Russian offensive in the Donbass are intact. That was completely different in the first six weeks in the Kyiv area.”

The slowness of the Russian manoeuvres, which - probably in part incorrectly - led to reports that Russia was slowing down and halting its advance, is at least partly part of the agenda, says Reisner: "Unlike in the first six weeks, where you were fast, narrow in a column and deep, the Russians are now advancing slowly, broadly and with massive infantry support, with the tanks being secured to the right and left by further armored trains.” The Russians only managed about 1.5 kilometers per hour in their advance, but did not get there more in ambushes. “We shouldn't make the mistake of interpreting the slowness of the advance as a weakness. That's exactly what we wanted. That can take weeks,” says Reisner.