Russia-Ukraine war latest: Russia changes tactics as counter-offensive looms
Updated 3 minutes ago
"Russia is targeting key cities and “decision-making centres” in a bid to stop Ukraine’s counter-offensive, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister has said.
Volodymyr Havrylov said Ukraine has faced repeated volleys of ballistic missiles last month in the capital Kyiv an urban centres.
Volodymyr Havrylov said Ukraine has faced repeated volleys of ballistic missiles last month in the capital Kyiv an urban centres.
“Their primary goal is to stop our counter-offensive and target decision-making centres,” Mr Havrylov said at Asia’s top security conference, the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
For Russia “it was a huge surprise to find that the effectiveness of (their ballistic missiles) was almost zero against modern air defence systems, which we received from our partners,” he added.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, announced today that Ukraine is ready to launch its long-awaited counter-offensive that has been delayed while it waits for tanks and weapons from European countries. . ."
Russia-Ukraine war news – latest:
We are ready for counteroffensive, Zelensky tells Putin
David Petraeus: Ukrainians will ‘out-suffer’ Vladimir Putin
The retired general predicts a momentous spring counteroffensive
Ukrainians will be able to “out-suffer” Vladimir Putin as the war wears on, former director of the CIA and retired army general David Petraeus has said. Speaking at the Bush School of Governance and Public Service in Washington D.C., Petraeus predicted that the spring “counteroffensive” would convince the Russian President to change his approach.
“I believe that’s what’s going to happen,” said Petraeus. “The question, then … is can Putin, over time, be convinced that he will not be able to out-suffer the Ukrainians, the Europeans, and the Americans, which is what he currently thinks.”
Petraeus was discussing an upcoming US-trained Ukrainian offensive against Russian military operations in Crimea at an event on 30th March, the video of which has only just been published. He noted that there are intensive US training, arming, and recruiting efforts to equip Ukrainians for the coming effort in Russian-occupied Melitopol, a southeastern city known as a gateway to Crimea.
“This May, early June, there is going to be a heck of an offensive from the Ukrainians, very likely in the south,” he said. “It probably has to be roughly in the Melitopol area, and they will try to sever the ground line of communications that Russia has established along the southeast coast of Ukraine linking into Crimea.”
- Petraeus advised that “training centres the US runs in Germany, Grafenwöhr, Hohenfels, UK, Poland, Ukraine itself,” have been preparing “entire new brigades… with new recruits from Ukraine”.
- The former CIA director noted that these brigades will execute the upcoming offensive “equipped with Western tanks … Western infantry-fighting vehicles … and Western-wheeled armoured vehicles — really, quite an extraordinary array of systems.”
- During the talk, Petraeus made clear that the US-trained Ukrainian brigades will have “engineers and EODs to produce obstacles and defuse explosives and mines,” and emphasised the novel Ukrainian capacity to hinder Russian military communications in Crimea, claiming that “they’ll have electronic warfare to jam the Russians’ networks.”
Petraeus expressed broader confidence that Ukrainian forces, with US training and additional reserve forces, would be able to continue offensive and defensive operations for as long as necessary against Russian advances.
Other retired US Army personnel have also commented on the prospective counteroffensive following Petraeus’s remarks.
- Lieutenant General Ben Hodges — former commanding general for US Army Europe, former Commander of NATO Allied Land Command, and current NATO Senior Mentor for Logistics — claimed just days ago that Ukraine will aim to retake Crimea, echoing many of the same details regarding armaments, strategy, and regional advances.
- Petraeus and Hodges, both retired US generals of different ranks, believe that Ukraine has the capacity to make Russia “bleed” in this counteroffensive.
- Leaked US intelligence documents from February suggest that current Biden administration officials are less optimistic about Ukraine’s ability to fully succeed.
Ukraine's counteroffensive will be 'very impressive' - Gen Petraeus
Gen David Petraeus has said Ukraine’s counteroffensive is “very impressive” and can succeed, adding that the Ukrainians are “determined to liberate their country”.
Petraeus, who was director of the CIA and led international forces in Iraq and Afghanistan before that, has been in Kyiv recently, meeting President Zelenskiy and others.
He spoke about the situation in Ukraine to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
On the counteroffensive, he said:I think that this counteroffensive is going to be very impressive.
My sense is that they will achieve combined arms effects in other words, they will successfully carry out combined arms operations where you have
- engineers that are breaching the obstacles and diffusing the minefields and so forth;
- armour following right on through protected by infantry against anti-tank missiles;
- air defence keeping the Russians aircraft off them;
- electronic warfare jamming their radio networks;
- logistics right up behind them; artillery and mortars right out in front of them.
And most important of all … is that as the lead elements inevitably culminate after 72-96 hours, physically that’s about as far as you can go, and they’ll have taken losses … you have follow-on units that will push right on through and capitalise on the progress and maintain the momentum and I think that can get the entire Russian defence in that area moving, then I think you have other opportunities that will open up on the flanks as well.
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