Russia does not have the resources available to launch a large-scale offensive around the Feb. 24 anniversary of the full-scale invasion, a senior military intelligence official has told Kyiv Post.
Andriy Chernyak, a representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, claimed rumors and reports of a pending massive attack were misplaced.
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He told Kyiv Post: "While information is spreading about a large-scale Russian offensive planned for Feb. 24, Ukraine's military intelligence reports that Russia has already launched a full-scale offensive on Feb. 24 last year, which is still ongoing.”
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Chernyak did not deny that Russia was planning something in the coming weeks, saying that right now it was “trying to find weaknesses in our defense.”
He added: “However, according to our information, Russian command does not have enough resources for large-scale offensive actions.
“The main goal of Russian troops remains to achieve at least some tactical success in eastern Ukraine.”
Earlier this month Chernyak told Kyiv Post that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered his armed forces to seize the entirety of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine by March, a plan he said was unrealistic.
Since then and according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russia has already begun an offensive in the Luhansk Oblast in eastern Ukraine where they are making “marginal advances along the Kharkiv-Luhansk Oblast border.”
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But the ISW added that the success of Moscow’s plan to take Donetsk and Luhansk regions “is not inherent or predetermined.”
Earlier this month Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Russia was possibly gathering “much more” than 300,000 mobilized troops at the border and could try something around Feb. 24.
And last month, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Russia plans to launch a new offensive to control all of Ukraine.
“We see that they [Russians] are preparing for more war, that they are mobilizing more soldiers, more than 200,000, and potentially even more than that,” he said.
A Russian attempt to seize all of Ukraine would almost certainly involve an attack from the territory of Belarus in a second attempt to seize Kyiv, something Chernyak does not believe will happen.
“An attack on Kyiv from Belarus is also unlikely in the coming weeks,” he told Kyiv Post.
Chernyak also highlighted that Russia is running low on precision weapons.
"Russia is facing a lack of precision weapons, and despite that, it will continue to use missile terror against civilians in Ukraine,” he said, just before today’s mass missile attack.
He added: “The Russians have already used more than 80 percent of precision missiles. They are trying to resume their production, but so far, they have not succeeded.”
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