Russian troops in the disputed Donbas region of Ukraine have achieved “no significant territorial advances” over the last 72 hours, despite having launched a number of artillery strikes across a broad front and assaults by platoon and company-sized units onto the battlefield to gauge Ukrainian resistance, British intelligence officials said Thursday.
Russian forces are now in danger of losing any momentum built up following the capture of Lysychansk, the last city in the Luhansk Oblast in eastern Ukraine that was still under Kyiv’s control, according to British military intelligence officials.
“The aging vehicles, weapons, and Soviet-era tactics used by Russian forces do not lend themselves to quickly regaining or building momentum unless used in overwhelming mass — which Russia is currently unable to bring to bear,” British officials tweeted Thursday.
Officials in London also said prospects for substantive talks to end the conflict in Ukraine remain low, despite recent negotiations between Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations on grain exports and prisoner exchanges.