Analysts question Russia’s capabilities to attack Kyiv

• Moscow can undertake a new ground onslaught against Kyiv.
• Russian forces are ill-prepared and shattered after 10 months of fighting.
• Kyiv weathered one of the worst rocket strikes since Russia invaded Ukraine.

Analysts doubt Moscow can undertake a new ground onslaught against Kyiv early next year because Russian forces are ill-prepared and shattered after 10 months of fighting.

Kyiv weathered “one of the worst rocket strikes” since Russia invaded Ukraine, officials said Friday. Ukrainian air defense shot down 37 of around 40 rockets that reached the city’s airspace.

The leader of the Ukrainian armed forces claimed 60 of 76 missiles launched against infrastructure targets were intercepted. Russian soldiers fired Kh-22 cruise missiles from Tu-22M3 bombers over the Sea of Azov, Ukraine’s air force reported.

General Valeriy Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, stated he expects a second Russian attack in 2023.

Russia prepares 200,000 new troops. Zaluzhny told The Economist, “They’ll try Kyiv again.”

He warned a massive Russian attack may happen in February, March, or January.

Russia mobilized 300,000 reservists between September and October, but experts say Moscow’s fresh troops are unlikely to be prepared or equipped to storm Kyiv again. Moscow’s first assault in February and March failed due to Ukrainian defense and Russian supply, intelligence, and command challenges.

Independent Russian military researcher Alexander Khamchikhin told AFP that such an operation is unlikely but not impossible.

US military analyst Michael Kofman recently called Russia’s offensive ability “unlikely.”

Kofman told the War on the Rocks podcast that Russia’s military effectiveness is connected to artillery ammunition fires.

The White House doubts Moscow can counterattack Kyiv.

White House spokesperson John Kirby said there’s no sign of a move on Kyiv.

Sergey Surovikin, a veteran of Moscow’s battles since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, will lead Russia’s military in Ukraine. The merciless general must integrate newly drafted soldiers and rebuild Russia’s battle units.

General Mick Ryan said Surovikin was also reforming Russia’s broken command system and integrating air support with ground operations.

Ryan stated in Foreign Policy that Surovikin commands a low-morale army that constantly loses soldiers and equipment. So far, data suggests that Russia’s forces to replace the dead and injured aren’t getting enough training.

He cautioned that the Siberia-born Russian commander was “almost likely drawing up comprehensive combat plans, unlike prior attacks that scattered Russia’s troops thin.”

Kyiv would be difficult to capture without destroying it in any attack.

“Taking a city without devastation is difficult, unless in instances of surrender, like Paris in 1940,” Khamchikhin remarked.

Pascal Ausseur, director of a French think group, said Ukrainian assertions of an imminent offensive were an attempt to focus minds in Western capitals.

“Ukrainians are shouting ‘keep helping us, don’t let us down,'” Ausseur told AFP. “These statements tell the West ‘we can still lose everything.”

They may be a distraction technique as Ukraine tries to assault in the southeast when the ground freezes in midwinter, making off-road driving simpler, he said.

Ausseur: “It would be extraordinary for the Ukrainians to take defensive positions that prevent offensive operations before March.”

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