Russia ‘unlikely to be able’ to conduct a ‘significant offensive’ this year, US spy chief says
Mike Brest
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Russia will most likely not be able to mount a “significant offensive operation this year” due to both munitions and manpower shortfalls, according to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines.
Haines and Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, both of whom testified in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, agreed that Russia’s military has expended so much of its stockpiles and suffered so many casualties that it will take years for it to recover.
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“Russian forces are facing significant shortfalls in munitions and are under significant personnel constraints, but continue to lay minefields and prepare new defensive positions in occupied Ukrainian territory,” Haines explained, noting that these troubles will continue regardless of the level of success Ukraine has in its upcoming and highly anticipated counteroffensive.
“But even if Ukraine’s counteroffensive is not fully successful, the Russians are unlikely to be able to mount a significant offensive operation this year,” she added. “In fact, if Russia does not initiate a mandatory mobilization and secure substantial third-party ammunition supplies beyond existing deliveries from Iran and others, it will be increasingly challenging for them to sustain even modest offensive operations.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin expected his troops would quickly overrun Ukraine’s forces and topple the government. But now, more than 14 months after his military invaded, he has “probably” reduced his near-term ambitions to consolidating “control of the occupied territory in eastern and southern Ukraine, and ensuring that Ukraine will never become a NATO ally,” Haines added.
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Classified documents believed to have been leaked by Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, 21, who is now facing multiple charges after allegedly removing the classified documents from a secured work environment, taking them home, and then posting the information online, revealed that the U.S. may not be expecting Ukraine’s offensive to have overwhelming success.
One document from early February, labeled “top secret,” warned that large “force generation and sustainment shortfalls” make it more likely that its offensive will result in only “modest territorial gains,” according to the Washington Post. Another document, dated Feb. 23, predicted a “grinding campaign of attrition” by Russia that “is likely heading toward a stalemate, thwarting Moscow’s goal to capture the entire region in 2023.”