There are conflicting views in Russia on whether or not to launch a renewed offensive in Ukraine, a senior U.S. State Department official said on Tuesday, reiterating Washington would keep backing Kyiv regardless of which scenario plays out.
The 10-month-old conflict prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has spiraled into the largest in Europe since World War Two, and has killed tens of thousands of people, driven millions from their homes and reduced cities to ruins.
But Russia’s invasion has faltered badly since the summer with a string of losses to a Ukrainian counter-offensive that retook swathes of occupied territory and forced Moscow into a partial mobilisation of 300,000 more troops.
“Certainly there are some (within Russia) who I think would want to pursue (new) offensives in Ukraine. There are others who have real questions about the capacity for Russia to actually do that,” the State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told reporters in Washington.
Russia is suffering “significant” shortages of ammunition posing a serious problem along the war’s front lines, the official said, and those that Moscow has called up to join its combat forces were often not “cohesive” units.
“There are all sorts of things that the Russians are dealing with in terms of having the necessary equipment, having the necessary ammunition that put some constraints on what they may want to do,” the official said.
“At the same time, it’s a very large machine.”
Ukraine’s top general, Valery Zaluzhniy, told The Economist last week Russia was preparing 200,000 fresh troops for a major offensive that could come from the east, south or even Belarus to the north as early as January, but more likely in spring.
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Belarus on Monday, his first visit to the country since 2019, raising fears in Kyiv that he intends to pressure Moscow’s fellow ex-Soviet ally to join a open a new invasion front against Ukraine.