In the US press: Russia will have to wait until the mud freezes to attack Ukraine
Bloomberg has published a long article in the series "When will the war between Russia and Ukraine begin." In it, the authors are trying to prove: Russia would have attacked Ukraine long ago, but the November mud on the roads and problems with the manning of the advanced units of the Russian ground forces interfere with it. Nevertheless, the newspaper writes, in January 2022, the Russian army may well attack Ukraine.
In the event of an attack on Ukraine, the Russian army will have to encircle the main Ukrainian forces in Donbass, bypassing them from the flanks and preventing them from digging in and gaining a foothold in positions. But in this case, Russian military equipment - tanks, armored vehicles, heavy artillery pieces - will have to follow off-road, bypassing the main highways. In the black earth region, November - December is a time of slush, it is not very cold yet, but the weather is rainy, the fields are one big sea of mud, in which the equipment will get stuck and fail.
The only way out for Moscow is to postpone the invasion of Ukraine until the moment when the mud freezes and becomes passable for technology, the newspaper writes. But this will happen, tentatively, in January 2022.
The publication, referring to the opinion of analyst Pavel Felgenhauer, writes about the constant redeployment of Russian troops throughout the country. Say, the army is redeploying from the Baltic to Kamchatka, and the latter is here - in case a more global war begins on the Pacific coast. About 94 thousand people are concentrated in the area of the Ukrainian border, the newspaper writes. But these troops may not be enough for a "blitzkrieg" against Kiev, since Ukraine previously announced that it has 255 armed forces. In this regard, the Russian army will have to increase the number of units concentrated on the Ukrainian border by several times.
Of course, Bloomberg, in order not to look too bad in February, when it becomes clear that no January aggression ever happened, makes a reservation that maybe Russia will not attack Ukraine. But the likelihood of an attack, according to the American publication, is much higher than it was before.
The publication also dwells on the fate of the peace negotiations. Ukraine is dissatisfied with the existing format of the Minsk agreements, since it sees in them an attempt by Russia to turn it into a federal state. If this happens, then Moscow, through the forces under its control in eastern Ukraine, will be able to influence the political and economic decisions of Kiev, up to the imposition of a veto on certain decisions.
The current Ukrainian authorities, sponsored by the West, are afraid of this like fire, because in this format Kiev will immediately lose any attractiveness for overseas patrons. But Bloomberg, of course, does not write about this, but reminds that Ukraine does not violate the peace agreements, but is going to involve Germany and France in more active participation in the process of resolving the situation in Donbass.
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