Russia’s assault on Donbas has “sort of fizzled” and the battle for the region will be over in two to four weeks, says military expert Dr Mike Martin.
The war studies visiting fellow at King’s College London says: “Basically the Russians are gonna run out of troops, and the Ukrainians are going to counterattack.”
The Russians have squandered their one chance to take the region, he believes.
“They pulled all of these mauled units out of Kyiv, and then tried to reconstitute them for combat in the east,” he explains.
But they were “bruised and damaged” by the battle for the Ukrainian capital and Russia failed to build them up and “do some bold manoeuvre”.
And Martin says there has been a “major strategic shift” in the war, with the UK declaring its aim is to clear Russian forces from Ukraine, including Crimea.
He adds that UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is “wrong”, however, to say this would take 10 years, insisting: “Russian forces will collapse before that, and we’ll see a coup.”
And with the US announcing US$33bn (£26bn) of funding for Ukraine, “that is an extremely clear signal of intent”, says Martin.
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