In its latest report on the war in Ukraine, published on Wednesday night, the US-based think tank said: “A Reuters investigation of a document trove found in an abandoned Russian command post in Balakliya, Kharkiv Oblast, supports ISW’s longstanding assessments about the poor condition of Russian forces.”
The US experts added that they had long assessed “that the conventional Russian military in Ukraine is severely degraded and has largely lost offensive capabilities since the summer of 2022, that Russian strategic commanders have been micromanaging operational commanders' decisions on tactical matters, and that Russian morale is very low.”
Now an investigation by the Reuters news agency found that “Russian units near Balakliya were severely understrength, with a combat battalion at 19.6-percent strength and a reserve unit at 23-percent strength,” the ISW wrote.
Furthermore, the investigation found that "poor morale, bad logistics, and overbearing commanders contributed to Russian forces’ poor performance,” the Washington-based think tank added.
According to the Reuters report, the Russian Western Military District explicitly forbade a subordinate from withdrawing from an untenable position in the small village of Hrakove, which has an area of less than three square kilometres, the ISW said.
As it turned out, “Ukrainian forces defeated Russian forces in Balakiya and routed Russian forces in eastern Kharkiv Oblast around September 8-10,” the ISW reported.
Putin 'retains maximalist objectives' for war on Ukraine
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric “indicates that he is not interested in negotiating seriously with Ukraine and retains maximalist objectives for the war,” the US experts observed.
They noted that Putin stated that Ukraine "has lost sovereignty” in a meeting with Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) security officials on Wednesday.
Moreover, Putin said that the United States "is using Ukraine as a ‘battering ram’ against Russia, the Russian-Belarusian Union State, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and the CIS,” according to the ISW.
Putin’s narrative was amplified by Russian lower-house Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, who stated on Wednesday that Ukraine "has lost the ability to exist as a state,” that it "is occupied by NATO,” and that it "has become a colony of the US,” the US think tank reported.
The ISW said that, in its view, this kind of "language is incompatible with negotiations on an equal basis for a ceasefire, let alone a resolution to the conflict that Russia began.”
The US analysts added that the Russian rhetoric "instead strongly suggests that the Kremlin still seeks a military victory in Ukraine and regime change in Kyiv that would affect the permanent reorientation of Ukraine away from the West and into Russia’s control. It also indicates that Putin’s aims transcend the territory he has claimed to have annexed, let alone the areas his forces actually control.”
US, allies call for UN probe into Russia’s use of Iranian drones
The United States and its Western allies on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Wednesday supported the launch of an expert investigation under the auspices of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, into whether Russia had used Iranian drones to attack civilians and power plants in Ukraine, the AP news agency reported.
Earlier, Washington accused Moscow of seeking to intimidate the UN and avoid responsibility, together with Iran, for violating a UN Security Council resolution by using Iranian drones to attack civilian targets in Ukraine, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
It quoted US Deputy UN Ambassador Robert Wood as saying that Russia was again threatening the United Nations, trying to deflect attention and mislead the world.
Ukrainian forces 'strengthening positions': Zelensky
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday night that "the situation on the front line has not undergone significant changes," with "the fiercest battles" in the eastern "Donetsk region: Bakhmut direction, Avdiyivka."
Speaking in a video address to the nation, Zelensky added: “The craziness of the Russian command is now most visible there: day after day for months, they drive people there to death, concentrate the maximum power of artillery strikes there.”
Zelensky also said that Ukrainian forces were strengthening their positions "everywhere at the front, reducing the capabilities of the occupiers, destroying their logistics and preparing good news for Ukraine.”
He added that air raid alerts sounded several times "over most of the territory of Ukraine" on Wednesday, the PAP news agency reported.
Thursday is day 246 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, understandingwar.org, Reuters, president.gov.ua