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Russian President Vladimir Putin - stung this month by the sinking of his nation’s flagship off the coast of Ukraine - is desperate for a military win ahead of the May 9 celebration of Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. But multiple visits to different parts of the front lines, where dozens of towns have been battered and graves freshly dug, indicate the foundations for a large Russian advance against Ukrainian forces is almost in place. “They have a shorter head-to-tail logistic supply line, which would presumably allow them more cohesive advances.”ĭespite assertions that the major offensive in the east has already begun, there so far have been no big tank battles.

“They can equip directly from the separatist and border areas, and wouldn’t have to route them through Belarus and other areas,” he said. Russia won’t have to deal with the supply-line setbacks it faced in the initial phase of the invasion, when it had amassed as many as 190,000 troops along Ukraine’s borders, said John Arterbury, a European security expert at Navanti, based in Arlington, Va. The Russians are also benefiting from maneuvering on territory controlled by Moscow-backed separatists who claimed roughly a third of the Donbas region before the wider war began. Russia has a numerical advantage over the Ukrainian army when it comes to artillery, tanks and heavy units, especially when fighting in the open rather than in cities, where armor is less effective and big armies must often contend with swift-moving guerrilla offensives. The shifting battlefield, said Lee, has changed that.