russia's ability to advance is winding down, conditions for a Ukrainian counteroffensive are being set up instead – expert

Ukrainian army is now better armed, better trained and has more capability than it had before February 24th. At the same time, the russian army is worse armed than at the beginning of the invasion. It’s losing a lot of its best equipment as well as its best trained soldiers. It doesn’t seem to be training the new ones. So the war has been shifting through those trend lines more in Ukraine’s favour. This means that russia's ability to advance is winding down, conditions for a Ukrainian counteroffensive are being set up instead.

Source. Phillips O’Brien, professor at the University of St. Andrew in Scotland, in the podcast for the Financial Times.

Details. According to him, Ukraine now has a range and accuracy advantage. It can hit targets far more accurately than the russians – far behind russian lines. Thus, instead of attacking the russians head-on, the Ukrainians are trying to weaken their defences – both morally and logistically.

He claims that russian elite formations have suffered heavy casualties – especially those who have been fighting for the longest time. If the russians are unable to destroy the enemy's defences with artillery, they have no ability to advance either.

Direct speech. “We can assume russian offensive advances are over, except in a pretty small area. The longer the war goes on, the more advantages there will be on the side of the Armed Forces, in particular, this applies to the training of soldiers for effective offensive operations.

We have a misconception about the offensive. In fact, it's starting with a long period of degrading russian forces. This implies the destruction of logistics, command and control points, taking down the bridges, taking down the rail lines, and the weakening of the provision of russian forces,” the expert explains.