The continuing of #Russian offensive operations around #Bakhmut and #Avdiivka, as well as along the #Luhansk and western #Donetsk front lines, is a further indicator that #Putin remains committed to victory in a protracted war.
It is not a given, nevertheless, that #Putin will continue fighting regardless of cost until the day he dies.
Putin is nevertheless putting no terms for negotiation on the table now other than #Russia’s total success. 2/
The choices before #Ukraine and its Western backers at this time are thus relatively straightforward:
(1) Ukraine can unilaterally cease fighting even as #Russian attacks by ground and air continue, which would lead to disastrous defeat. 3/
(2) #Ukrainian forces can continue fighting in a very constrained way seeking only to hold what they now have, which will encourage #Putin to continue his efforts to pursue outright military victory.
(3) 🇺🇦 can launch successive counteroffensive ops. with the twin aims of persuading #Putin to accept a negotiated compromise or of creating mil. realities sufficiently favorable to 🇺🇦 that it and its W. allies can then effectively freeze the conflict. 5/5
#Russia appears to be increasingly deploying elements of conventional formations in a piecemeal fashion along the entire frontline, including in southern Ukraine.
#Russian sources claimed on Mar. 27 that the 136th Motorized Rifle Brigade is operating in the #Zaporizhia direction... [B]ut a Russian milblogger claimed on Mar. 21 that unspecified elements of the 136th are instead operating in the #Avdiivka direction. 2/
The apparent simultaneous commitment of elements of the 136th Motorized Rifle Brigade to two disparate areas of the frontline is notably not a doctrinally sound pattern of deployment. 3/
NEW: Rumors about the dismissal of #Russian Eastern Group of Forces Commander Colonel General Rustam #Muradov generated a muted and cynical response in the Russian information space. #Ukraine
One prominent milblogger claimed that military authorities are also considering dismissing Western Military District Commander Colonel General Yevgeny #Nikiforov, whose forces operate along the #Kupyansk-#Svatove-#Kreminna line in eastern #Ukraine. 2/
ISW cannot confirm the rumors of either #Muradov’s or #Nikiforov’s dismissals, but it is noteworthy that #Russian milbloggers are discussing potential dismissals of commanders associated with areas of operation in which . . . 3/
The outcomes of wars often are, in fact, determined on the battlefield with negotiations that merely ratify military realities. Putin likely has one such example vividly in his mind—World War II in Europe. 1/
WWII ended only when Allied forces had completely defeated the German military and Soviet troops stood in the wreckage of Berlin. Japan surrendered a few months later after the US had demonstrated what appeared to be the ability to destroy the country completely. 2/
Going further back in history the peaces that ended the three Wars of German Unification, the American Civil War, and the Napoleonic Wars also merely ratified realities created by decisive military victories. Even the most recently ended war adhered to this pattern. 3/
#Prigozhin claimed that unspecified #Russian authorities forced state-controlled media outlet RT—which has consistently promoted #Wagner operations in #Ukraine—to cut the first half of a film on the role of Russian convicts in the war because it centered on the Wagner Group. 2/
#Prigozhin claimed that #Russian authorities want to convince the populace that “pomaded generals” in fancy offices really won the war. 3/
#Ukrainian and Western officials offered various views of the state of the #Russian offensive in #Bakhmut on March 25, but all are consistent with the assessment that the Russian effort around Bakhmut is likely culminating.
#Russian forces may continue to attack #Bakhmut frequently and aggressively even if the offensive has culminated with little to no success, as ISW has previously assessed, as culmination does not mean the absence of fighting. 2/
#Russian attacks in and around #Bakhmut may resume at high levels without generating significant new gains if conventional Russian forces do, in fact, enter the fray. 3/
2/ #Prigozhin stated that #Russia is fighting “exclusively with #Ukrainians” who are equipped with #NATO-provided equipment and some “russophobic” mercenaries who voluntarily support #Ukraine - but not NATO itself.
3/ #Prigozhin also noted that #Russian officials most likely knew that #NATO would offer #Ukraine military aid, because “it is ridiculous to think that when [#Russia] decided to conduct this special military operation it did not account for NATO’s help to Ukraine.”