Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that Moscow is preparing for the Ukrainian attack that Kiev is expected to launch in the next few weeks, as part of its efforts to liberate the territories controlled by Russian forces.
Medvedev said in an interview with Russian media on Friday that the Ukrainian side is “preparing to attack and everyone knows that,” noting that the Russian General Staff is “studying the situation and preparing its own solutions for confrontation.”
The deputy head of Russia’s Security Council warned that Moscow was ready to use “all weapons” if Ukraine tried to regain Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
Medvedev’s latest threat to use nuclear weapons came amid a growing acknowledgment in Moscow that Russian forces may soon find themselves on the defensive as their winter offensive slows.Guardian“.
For his part, the head of the Wagner Military Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, warned that Ukraine “plans to besiege the special military forces in Bakhmut and move towards the Black Sea in the Zaporizhia region,” parts of which Moscow occupies.
In a video he posted, Prigozhin claimed that Ukraine had concentrated more than 80,000 troops around the eastern Ukrainian city.
The Russian army, with the support of Wagner’s forces, has been fighting for months to control Bakhmut and the surrounding area, in the fiercest and bloodiest battles since the beginning of the invasion.
Western officials warn that Bakhmut is regarding to fall into the hands of the Russians, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has confirmed that his country’s forces will continue to defend the city, which has turned into a symbol of Ukrainian resistance.
With the influx of modern Western weaponry, Ukrainian leaders have begun to raise the possibility of an unexpected shift in the course of the city, large parts of which are controlled by Russian forces.
The commander of the Ukrainian ground forces, Oleksandr Sersky, said on his Telegram channel, on Thursday, that “the Russians are losing large numbers of their forces in Bakhmut and are running out of energy.”
Russia lost up to 30,000 soldiers in Bakhmut, according to Western officials.
“Soon, we will use this opportunity, as we did in the past near Kiev, Kharkiv, Balaklia and Kubyansk,” Sersky said, referring to the Ukrainian counterattacks that have led to the recapture of occupied cities.
The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has not yet commented on the Ukrainian counterattack, which is expected to be launched with the onset of spring, as the newspaper indicated that he refuses to comment on military developments on the ground.
But inside Russia, some supporters of the war renewed their attacks on the military leadership because of its inability to achieve tangible military successes as the conflict entered its fourteenth month.
The Russian ultra-nationalist and former intelligence officer, Igor Strelkov, criticized the Russian president for not modernizing the army, which he described as a “wet towel”.
On the other hand, an ally of the Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, said on Friday that Moscow wants to establish demilitarized buffer zones inside Ukraine around the areas it annexed, adding that it may be necessary to penetrate deep into Ukraine if this is not achieved.
More than a year following the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin’s primary goals of the war have not yet been achieved, despite Russia’s control of nearly a fifth of the country’s area.
Neither side showed any sign of backing down. Hundreds of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or seriously wounded, according to Western military estimates.
Russia insists it will achieve all its war aims and has warned the West once morest testing its resolve. The West says what CIA Director William Burns calls Putin’s “arrogance” will be squashed on the battlefield.