2023-04-17 19:07:00
Leaked US documents reveal that both Ukraine and Russia are preparing for the next phase of the war
A Ukrainian service member is seen in a trench in a position on a front line, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, near the town of Bakhmut, Ukraine April 10, 2023. (Photo: REUTERS/Oleksandr Klymenko)
Several important conclusions regarding the course of the conflict in Ukraine emerge from the documents leaked by the United States.
Russian ground forces in the country are nearing exhaustion and few reinforcements are available. Ukrainian air defenses are depleted, making any counteroffensive vulnerable to Russian air superiority.
And the United States does not expect the war to end this year.
The 53 documents reviewed by CNN offer a snapshot of the capabilities and vulnerabilities perceived by the US Department of Defense in the first quarter of this year.
Snapshots are inherently risky: Circumstances change, as do resources and intentions. But the documents tend to confirm that Ukrainian forces are preparing for an offensive and that Russia is spending great efforts to hold on to what it already has, while looking for aviation to neutralize any Ukrainian attack.
And if the Russians were unaware of how the Ukrainian military would design its counteroffensive, the documents may have provided them with some useful pointers.
Wrecked Russian brigades: Several of the documents, which appear to date for the most part from February and March, tend to confirm that Russia has committed the vast majority of its army battalions to its war in Ukraine. Despite last fall’s mobilization, which potentially added 300,000 troops to the Russian ranks, a significant minority of these battalions are described as “combat ineffective,” ie, short of men and equipment.
According to a document, 527 of the 544 available Russian battalions are committed to the operation, and 474 are already inside Ukraine. A considerable number of them are deployed in the south of the country, with some 23,000 troops in Zaporizhzhia and another 15,000 in Kherson. This suggests that the Russians expect any Ukrainian offensive to target that region.
But in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, for example, 19 out of 91 battalions were labeled “combat ineffective.”
Russia still has vast inventories of materiel, but documents suggest that some of the best has already been lost, and older and less reliable armor is being dusted off. In one of them it is said that Russia continued to fall behind in the declared objectives of replenishment of materiel and personnel, and that it was incorporating “older and less precise ammunition systems.”
Open skies: While Ukraine’s ground forces may be in better shape than the enemy’s, especially once the 12 new brigades mentioned in a leak are fully trained and equipped, their reliance on Soviet-era air defenses points to a growing vulnerability, according to documents obtained by CNN. This, in turn, may give the Russian air force freedom in the skies to disrupt any Ukrainian ground offensive.
One of the leaked documents detailed how Ukraine’s stockpiles of Soviet-era medium-range air defense missiles were severely depleted. And, most disturbingly, it suggested that Ukraine had run out of ammunition for the highly capable German-made Iris-T air defense system in February.
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