Kyrylo Budanov made the assessment in an interview with the British broadcaster BBC in the early hours of Thursday.
Ukraine’s spy chief said: "The situation is just stuck. It doesn't move."
Since Ukrainian forces retook the southern city of Kherson in mid-November, the most fierce fighting has been around the town of Bakhmut, in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, news outlets reported.
Russian troops seem to be on the defensive elsewhere; at the same time, winter has slowed Ukraine’s ground counteroffensives across the 1,000-kilometre-long frontline, according to the BBC.
Budanov said that Russia was “now completely at a dead end,” suffering “very significant losses,” and that he believed Moscow had already decided to carry out another mobilisation of conscripts.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is waiting for more advanced weaponry from Western allies before its forces can move forward in various areas, according to Budanov.
The spy chief told the BBC: “We can't defeat them in all directions comprehensively. Neither can they. We're very much looking forward to new weapons supplies, and to the arrival of more advanced weapons."
Bakhmut ‘covered with blood’: Zelensky
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said that “only a few” civilians remained in Ukrainian-held Bakhmut.
Writing on the Telegram social messaging app on Wednesday, Zelensky added that “there is no place that is not covered with blood” in the embattled eastern town, according to Britain’s The Guardian newspaper.
'Russian offensive against Bakhmut is likely culminating': ISW
Meanwhile, the Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank, said on Wednesday night that “the Russian offensive against Bakhmut is likely culminating.”
The US experts noted that, according to American military doctrine, culmination means the "point at which a force no longer has the capability to continue its form of operations, offense or defense,” and “when a force cannot continue the attack and must assume a defensive posture or execute an operational pause.”
The ISW predicted, however, that Russian troops around Bakhmut "may nevertheless continue to attack aggressively.”
The Washington-based think tank said: “Culminated Russian forces may continue to conduct ineffective squad-sized assaults against Bakhmut, though these assaults would be very unlikely to make operationally significant gains.”
Zelensky addresses parliament
The Ukrainian president on Wednesday made his annual address to the country’s parliament, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
In attendance were Valery Zaluzhny, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, as well as Cabinet ministers, foreign diplomats, army personnel and families of fallen soldiers, The Guardian reported.
In his speech, Zelensky said that Ukraine had secured the release of 1,456 prisoners of war since the start of the Russian invasion.
He added a said that he had taken part in 850 international events since February 24, according to hi presidential website.
Meanwhile, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) announced that 6,884 civilians were known to have died in Russia’s war on Ukraine, including 429 children, since February 24.
In its latest civilian casualty update, the UN cautioned that the actual figure was likely to be “considerably higher,” the Ukrinform news agency reported.
Thursday is day 309 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: BBC, understandingwar.org, The Guardian, PAP, president.gov.ua, ukrinform.net, ohchr.org