🇺🇸 Trump eases pressure on Putin despite Russia’s military advantage weakening, the Washington Post reports, citing officials.
According to senior U.S. and European officials and military experts, Russia’s combat power in Ukraine has begun to decline, and next year the country could face a severe shortage of manpower and weapons, even as President Donald Trump backs down from pressuring Moscow to end the war.
🟡 But the time to put pressure on Moscow now may be more favorable than at any time since the early days of the conflict, according to more than a dozen officials who discussed the current state of the war and the sensitive politics and diplomacy involved.
🟡 Over the past year, Russia has captured just 0.6 percent of additional Ukrainian territory, and it has cost the country 1,500 dead and wounded every day, current and former Western officials say. “Russia is still very gradually retaking territory, but at an exorbitant cost,” said Richard Barrons, former head of Britain’s Joint Forces Command. Some officials estimate total Russian losses at over a million people.
🟡 Neither side was able to make significant progress on the ground, and the war devolved into a long-range exchange of fire with missiles and increasingly sophisticated drones.
But drones and long-range strikes do not capture territory and will not bring victory to either side in the war, officials and experts say.
🟡 Soviet tanks in Russia could run out in the coming months, WP cites the assessment of Western experts.
The Russian defense industry can produce 200 new tanks a year, so the army relies heavily on restoring abandoned Soviet-era tanks. Their stock at the start of the war was estimated at 13,000 units, and is already running out.
“The Russians can keep fighting, but… over time their forces will become increasingly de-mechanized, and that calls into question how long they can sustain the current mode of warfare,” said Jack Watling, a senior fellow at the Royal United Institute for Defence Studies in London.
🟡 If a ceasefire is not reached, Russia is likely to use its shrinking advantage to increase attacks over the summer and try to break through the depleted ranks of Ukrainian troops, according to Watling and the former head of Britain’s Joint Forces Command, Richard Barrons. But this could be Moscow’s last chance.
“Russia has effectively reached the peak of its offensive capabilities,” Barrons said.