In Ukraine, alarm is growing about a new imminent large-scale Russian offensive. Moscow has begun deploying ships and submarines with tactical nuclear weapons in the Baltic Sea and is amassing fighter jets on the border with Ukraine, according to intelligence sources. But the US is holding back: we have no evidence.
For now no jet from Ukraine
The supply of fighter jets to Ukraine”it is not the center of attention for now”. The German Defense Minister said, Boris Pistorius, in an interview with the broadcaster Ard. "If the skies over Ukraine remain safe for the next three to four months, then we can talk about all the next steps.", Pistorius said, stressing that the priority is to ensure the safety of the airspace, which requires an operational air defense system with sufficient ammunition.
About sending jets to Ukraine said the Italian defense minister, Guido Crosetto”nWe have certainly not talked about topics of this type”. Regarding the delivery of the system Samp-T, in these meetings "we are not talking about technical things: we are talking about political will, about vision, about the possibility of ending the war and interrupting the war. No mention of technical details", which are dealt with by the top management"of the armed forces“, he adds. Today's meetingit was focused on Ukraine and the Eastern Front. Italy has not changed its mind: the support is for Ukraine, for the freedom of Ukraine and for the right of a nation to remain intact and free, not to be attacked and to see its infrastructures destroyed and its people killed”.
Crosetto on the third phase of the war he said:"We have been talking about possible escalation every day for almost a year, because it happens like this when there are armed conflicts and when one of the powers in the field is equipped with all types of armaments. But the people who deal with these things in their lives and have always ruled out that there could be an escalation in the coming weeks and months ".
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Meanwhile, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, Moscow has resumed deploying ships carrying tactical nuclear weapons, the same type of missiles it has threatened to launch on Ukraine: this was revealed by the Norwegian intelligence service in its report annual. “The bulk of Russia's nuclear capability is on the submarines and surface vessels of the Northern Fleet“, write the 007 of Oslo. “A particularly serious threat in various operational scenarios in which NATO countries could be involved. Russia is expected to upgrade its nuclear arsenal."
Western intelligence agencies claim that Russia is amassing planes on the border with Ukraine, a signal that Moscow could use these planes to support a ground offensive: wrote the Financial Times. The war, almost a year after its start, could enter a new phase. For this reason, Western countries have supplied Ukraine with air defense assets and munitions to try to contain the possibility of a wave of air strikes. Two officials reported that intelligence from NATO countries has detected that Moscow is deploying fixed-wing aircraft on the border with Ukraine.
"It is absolutely clear that we have a short window of time to help the Ukrainians prepare for an offensive and that they have quite specific needs“, a senior US administration official explained to the FT, who assessed how “pretty impoverished” the Russian ground force and this indicates that Moscow “it will move to airstrikes“. Moscow has made limited use of its aircraft since the beginning of the war. According to intelligence assessments, at the moment the Russian air force “could be quite well preserved”, according to a NATO diplomat. It is therefore expected to be used for “attempt to disable the Ukrainian air defenses".
For now the US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin it scaled down the alarm. “As to whether or not Russia is massing its planes for a massive strike, we don't see it right now. We know that Russia has a substantial number of aircraft in its inventory and a lot of capabilities left over".
The phases of the war
Kiev intelligence claims Putin ordered his forces to seize Donbass before the end of spring. The Moscow offensive, according to some observers, could begin in less than ten days, on the occasion of Russia's Defender of the Fatherland Day.
Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksy Danilov claims that "Russians love to link everything to some striking date. Putin's birthday, October 7; on 22 December for the centenary of the USSR; then New Years. Now there is February 24th”.
Danilov is convinced that “the war will not last five or ten years. The world today is fast. In 2024 there will be elections in many countries, and the electoral campaign will already start next summer. Even our war will participate, indirectly: I want to see with my own eyes who will say they support Putin, in the US or in Great Britain or in other countries. And there are many other elements that influence the war, and everything that happens in the world is connected: Putin has locked himself in a blind spot ".
La first stage of the all-out invasion of Russia ended in partial defeat by Putin's forces: pushed back to the north, then from the Kharkiv region in September, and then again from northern Kherson oblast and Kherson oblast west of the Dnieper in November. There second stage saw thousands of Russian mercenaries and convicts sacrificed for small territorial gains around the cities of Bakhmut and Soledar. They have been targeted with mass rocket attacks on power plants, electricity transmission infrastructure and water systems. Russia has used cruise missiles to destroy Ukraine's electricity and water networks.
Sul Guardian journalist Julian Borger spoke about the third stage: “An all-out battle to gain a decisive advantage, using combined arms, mechanized infantry, artillery, air power and possibly waterborne assault, to overcome fixed positions. The world hasn't seen anything like it since the Iran-Iraq war in the 80s, while Europe hasn't seen anything like it since World War II.".
Dara Massicot, former Pentagon analyst on phase three: “they tried last year, and it didn't go well, and the forces they left on the field are not that professional and the equipment is not that good”. But even poorly led, poorly equipped and poorly trained troops can be overwhelming, if in sufficient numbers, even more so with a war economy launched at full capacity and in a country with domestic opposition crushed by repression.