According to him, both sides remain active near Bakhmut, while the situation is similar in the Zaporizhia region – both Ukrainians and Russians attack and counterattack.
“The difficult situation remains near Avdijivka, and the Ukrainians are counter-attacking very fiercely here, preventing the Russians from increasing the threat of encirclement,” he added.
VIDEO: Ukrainian defenders destroy Russian equipment near Avdijivka
According to a military expert, the Russians brag heavily about their heroic attempts to push out the Ukrainians near the settlement of Krynyi on the left bank of the Dnieper, modestly ignoring the fact that very small Ukrainian forces are successfully defending themselves here and are holding the bridgeheads occupied.
The Kremlin is demonstrating its ambitions to increase its forces, E. Papečkys wrote.
“According to Dmitry Medvedev, this year the Russian armed forces have increased by 385 thousand. soldiers, including 305 thousand have concluded professional military service contracts (so-called “contractors”). Next year, it is planned to additionally form 1 corps, 7 divisions, 19 brigades, 49 regiments and 1 flotilla,” he noted.
The expert noticed that there is no longer such a great lack of manpower on the Russian side. This is evidenced by the promised faster rotation of forces at the front and the release of soldiers on vacation.
“However, there is still a strong need for weapons and equipment. Therefore, single equipment collected from warehouses appeared at the front. For example, the BTR-90 armored personnel carrier, which was not adopted by the arsenal and was not serially produced, a copy of which used to travel around exhibitions, later, not finding buyers, gathered dust in the warehouse”, added E. Papečkys.
BMD-3 airborne combat vehicles are also planned to be withdrawn from the warehouses. According to the expert, they turned out to be not very successful, so they were kept in warehouses for a “black day”, and the BMD-4M was started to be produced instead (BMD-4 also failed, BMD-4M had to be constructed).
“As we can see, the dark day has already arrived,” he said.
E. Papečkys estimated that new weapons are also on their way to the front. The first batch of self-propelled 152 mm howitzers “Malva”, mounted on a truck chassis (analogous to the French CAESAR), was reported.
“So faster and cheaper than on a tank chassis, there can be no doubt that “Malva” will increase in number on the front. The development of the Russian military industry is accelerating, and the coming years will not be so favorable for the Ukrainians, as Russia will try to gain a greater quantitative advantage.”
The military expert also reminded that every year 120 thousand increases the number of newly trained reservists who can be mobilized at any time after conscription. There will be about 350,000 such fresh reservists who do not need to be retrained in the autumn of next year.
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