Kremlin bids to outnumber Ukrainians five to one

Sources insist the force, comprising tens of thousands of soldiers, would still fall short of the number needed for Russia to win.

Satellite images suggest Russia is building up troops and equipment. Picture: Maxar Technologies via AFP

Russia is attempting to muster a force that will outnumber Ukrain­ian troops in the east of the country five to one.

A Ukrainian military source said Russian troops were being brought in from across the region for what Moscow hoped would be a decisive battle in Donbas. They insisted the force, comprising tens of thousands of soldiers, would still fall short of the number needed for Russia to win.

Some Western sources expect the offensive to begin by the end of the week. Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that his campaign would continue until victory.

Satellite images and reports suggest Russia is building up troops and equipment in at least three places on Ukraine’s border – in the Belgorod and Voronezh ­regions, and around the southern town of Matveev Kurgan.

Operating under a new ­commander, General Aleksandr Dvornikov, who played a prominent role in the Syrian civil war, Russian troops are reinforcing their operations around Izyum, southeast of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine. Those forces are expected to try to push further south to seize Slovyansk, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank. From there, they could advance to the southeast to encircle a Ukrainian contingent.

If the besieged port city of ­Mariupol falls, up to 6000 Russian troops could be freed up to push north and complete the encirclement of another large group of Ukrainian troops.

The Ukrainians, who have been fighting pro-Russian separatists in Donbas since 2014, have developed extensive fortifications and dug in across the east. Some of their best-equipped and most-skilled battalions are stationed there, although the size of the force is unclear.

Richard Barrons, a former British military chief, said the Russians would try to put more ground ­forces in the “face of the Ukrainians … to get the force ratios right, knowing the Ukrainians in the east are in very well-prepared positions”.

He said well-established defensive positions were “difficult to overcome” and that experts ­talked about the need for a force ratio of at least five to one, if not seven to one, in a frontal assault. Although Russia was unlikely to be able to mount a force seven times bigger than the Ukrainian one, General Barrons said, “this will be a very hard attritional fight”.

He said the Russians would probably try to ­encircle Ukrainian troops to force them to leave well-defended positions. He said Russian tanks should be able to move quickly across open country, ­making them harder to target, adding: “The Ukrainians are going to need weapons of great range and lethality.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Mr Putin is amassing “tens of thousands” of troops for the offensive after appearing to abandon his plans to take Kyiv. A Western official said that as many as 38 Russian battalion tactical groups, comprising up to 1000 troops each, were no longer effective for combat, leaving about 90 BTGs. “Many of those are either awaiting orders to move or are moving to reinforce operations for the Donbas,” the official said. With a force ratio of five to one, 90,000 Russian troops would take on 18,000 Ukrainians.

At the start of the invasion Ukraine had about 10 brigades in Donbas, which Western officials said amounted to less than half the overall Ukrainian force.

UK Armed Forces Minister James Heappey said the battle for Donbas would be between two “very well-matched” militaries and it was “quite likely” Ukraine would win. He told Times Radio: “The Ukrainians have got the wind on their back. They have seen off the initial advances and defeated some of Russia’s best regiments and battalions. The next wave of Russian troops that come at them in the Donbas will not be Russia’s best.”

He reiterated the view Mr Putin’s plan for Donbas is driven by his desire to show “some big military success” on May 9, the day Russia commemorates the defeat of Germany in 1945.

The Times