Behind Russia's 'Pause' in Ukraine, Signs of a Troubled Regroupment Effort

With Russian forces in the midst of an alleged "operational pause", some Ukrainians in the country's battered eastern front regions are wondering what this means at a time when their cities are shelling still under control.

Military analysts say they have indeed observed a Russian pause - an effort to regroup and prepare reinforcements for a new assault on the cities in Donetsk province.

< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Russian President Vladimir V. Putin warned this month that his forces had yet to exert their fiercest efforts against Ukraine. But according to some assessments, as well as reports of Russia's scramble to send more troops into the offensive, some analyzes question the effectiveness of the units Russia is moving.

"Despite President Putin's assertion on July 7, 2022 that the Russian military has "not even started" its efforts in Ukraine, many of its reinforcements are ad hoc task forces, deployed with obsolete or inappropriate equipment", an assessment by the UK Ministry of Defence. said on Saturday.

A sign that the Ministry of Defense pointed out was that it expected new Russian troops to be deployed with MT armored vehicles -LB. The MT-LB, first designed in the 1950s to fire artillery, is not heavily armored and can only mount a machine gun to protect its forces.

"Russia has long considered they are unsuitable for most front-line infantry transport roles," the UK ministry said in its analysis. , which can also fire anti-tank missiles.

Then there are reports from Russian channels on the Telegram app of a tense effort to gather more troops to fight Russia has resorted to creating battalions of volunteers to deploy to Ukraine, a move that avoids national recruitment that Moscow may fear is too politically risky.

The locations from which many of these reports to come indicate that many of these volunteers come from areas where minorities live. impoverished ethnic groups from Russia, as well as Ukrainians from breakaway territories in eastern Ukraine. Some analysts during a discussion of the war at the University of Cambridge on Friday said it suggested the government was trying to avoid having too many casualties in Moscow or other areas, mostly ethnic Russians or locals. wealthier classes.

But whatever challenges Russia's plans might face, local officials in Ukraine said the "pause" had no not doing much for the besieged regions on the eastern front lines, with some towns still coming under heavy strikes.

"The enemy does not stop the terror of our towns and villages," Valentyn Reznichenko, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, said on Telegram, citing several attacks overnight against the city of Kryvyi Rih.

The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War has not é in his daily assessment that a successful military operational pause usually includes continued assaults against certain enemy targets. In this way, he said, Russia would seek to prevent Ukraine from carrying out a successful counterattack as Moscow's forces regroup.

The purpose of such tactics, according to the assessment, is "to persuade the enemy that no pause is contemplated or in progress, or that it will be too short to be of benefit to the enemy, and so convince the enemy that he does not have the opportunity to take the initiative."

"The design of the Russian campaign", he added, "also inadequate as it has generally been, is nevertheless good enough to manifest this basic principle of operational art."