In February, he suspended Russian adherence to New Start, the last nuclear weapons treaty with the US. Three days after the invasion, Putin announced he was putting Russia’s nuclear forces on alert. Photograph: Tyler Hicks/New York Timesīut Russia indulges in what Rosselet calls “irresponsible nuclear rhetoric”. Ukrainian soldier fires a French TRF1, a 155mm towed howitzer, in the Donetsk province of Ukraine. Mélanie Rosselet, head of strategic analysis at the French atomic energy commissariat, noted that nuclear deterrence is working, since Russia dares not attack any Nato member. Now they have men, but the quality is poor.” He predicts it would take three or four more successful Ukrainian offensives to break the Russian army. Last September they used mannequins to hide the shortage of manpower. But the Russian front is “more solid, more dense than last September. The Russian winter offensive is ending “with negligible strategic results, even if Bakhmut falls”, Goya says. Russia mobilised 300,000 more troops and started another offensive in Donbas in December, while at the same time attempting to destroy Ukraine’s electricity network. Putin gave free rein to Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenary group. In the third phase, late last summer, the Ukrainian army reorganised around newly acquired western weapons and reconquered thousands of square kilometres in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions. “They sacrificed an infantry company for every square kilometre, a huge price to pay,” Goya says. In the second phase, Russia tried to paralyse Ukraine with missile strikes and ate away at eastern Ukraine, conquering the cities of Mariupol, Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. In the month following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022, the Russians met fierce resistance from Ukraine but nonetheless managed to occupy much of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Goya outlined the stages of the war so far. “Would it be worth turning China and the entire world against them? I think only Crimea might justify the use of nuclear weapons in Putin’s mind.” Michel Goya, a historian, strategist and retired colonel in the French marines, told the seminar that the cost to Russia of using nuclear weapons would be enormous. The US has made the consequences of Russian first use perfectly clear, and China has also warned Putin against it.Ī Ukrainian soldier on the frontline battles with Russian troops near Bakhmut. They need to understand exactly what will happen,” he says. “Strategic ambiguity doesn’t work with Russia. Zagorodnyuk believes Russia will not carry out its threat to use nuclear weapons. But you could have done this three, four or five months ago’… By the end of the year, I think we will see substantial innovations which were considered extremely escalatory months ago.” “As soon as it’s done, things move and we say, ‘Okay. Even Himars, which are a normal thing on the battlefield, were considered escalatory. “Self-deterrence is a constant challenge… Six months ago, tanks were considered escalatory. ![]() “If the tanks had been committed last June, they would have been delivered and we would be progressing with the counter-offensive already.”Ī perceived but unfounded “escalation risk” often holds suppliers back, Zagorodnyuk says. Zagorodnyuk regrets that slow decision-making in the West has repeatedly delayed the arrival of military equipment. Brigades of 3,000 soldiers are the standard unit of the Ukrainian army. Western donors have promised 150 tanks, which will be deployed in one or two brigades. Zagorodnyuk admits that the spring offensive will not be sufficient to liberate Ukraine. “We’re receiving a lot of equipment and support from the West in order to create a substantial force capable of breaking through the front lines,” Zagorodnyuk continues.ĭespite a “scorched earth” strategy that left much of the eastern Donbas region in ruins, and Russian progress this week in the disputed city of Bakhmut, Zagorodnyuk says the Russian offensive has stalled and that Russian forces continue to take hundreds of casualties daily. Ukraine wants to retain the element of surprise for the counter-offensive, as it did for lightning operations which retook much of the Kharkiv and Kherson regions last September. “Ukraine is collecting forces for a counter-offensive in springtime,” Andriy Zagorodnyuk, former Ukrainian defence minister and director of the Centre for Defence Strategies in Kyiv, told a seminar on the strategic lessons of the war in Ukraine, organised by the Fondation Jean-Jaurès in Paris. From Germany, Leopard tanks and Marder fighting infantry vehicles. It’s spring and heavy weapons flock to Ukraine like migrating birds.
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