“They want to achieve some natural, tangible goals in Donbass within the next two weeks,” a senior Pentagon official told reporters during a briefing on Thursday. However, given the ongoing challenges, Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to deliver the knockout blow he is desperately seeking, analysts say. Any territorial gains Russia makes are expected to be significantly less significant than those envisioned by Putin when he launched the invasion of his much smaller and less powerful neighbor in late February. A Ukrainian soldier guards in Donbas. (Fadel Senna / AFP via Getty Images) In addition, these gains could be to the detriment of the continuing deterioration of preparedness, morale and other factors already operating against Russia. The final border between Ukraine and Russian forces “may not really be as different from what it is now,” says Phillips P. O’Brien, a military strategy and history researcher at St. Petersburg University. Andrews in the UK, arguing the conflict purely in terms of territorial gains. “What matters is the state of the armed forces, not where they are on the map.” The initial invasion was envisioned by the top Russian general Valery Gerasimov as a swift, ruthless and multifaceted attack aimed at stunning the Ukrainians. Kyiv was to be overthrown within days, and the whole “special operation” – as the Russians still insist on calling what is now apparently a full-scale war – would be relatively painless, in military terms, like the previous invasion of Ukraine in 2014. A vigorous Ukrainian resistance, reinforced by Western anti-aircraft systems and other material, thwarted Gerasimov’s plan, forcing the Russians to retreat. “They were not planning to be a long, long struggle,” Benjamin H. Friedman, policy director at Defense Priorities, a think tank in Washington, told Yahoo News. “Now they have changed their minds.” The story goes on According to the Pentagon, the Kremlin has assembled 65 regular battalion groups, or BTGs, on the eastern border of Ukraine. The question is whether this force will be sufficient to consolidate and extend Russian gains – or whether the same mistakes made in the first stage of the war are endemic to the Russian army as a whole, which means that the second stage does not it will all be different. A satellite image shows the deployment of troops, tents and vehicles west of Russia’s Soloti, near the border with Ukraine. (Satellite image © 2022 Maxar Technologies) Putin has named General Aleksandr Dvornikov as the leader of the new offensive, which was sent to Syria in 2015 in a (finally successful) attempt by Russia to support dictator Bashar al-Assad. Before that, he fought in Chechnya in a fierce campaign of many years that one feared could be reproduced in Ukraine. Dvornikov’s appointment can be seen as a sign that Putin “now seems ready to embrace the long-standing principles of war: simplicity, unity of effort and focused logistics,” as a retired U.S. Brigadier General. General Mark Kimmitt wrote in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week. Kimit added that if a precedent were to be set, Dvornikov’s attack, which is expected to begin soon in Donbas, would include a predictable combination of “large armored formations and huge concentrations of artillery, rockets and missiles.” The change in military leadership, however, could also be less a sign of fresh thinking than a recognition that the Kremlin simply had to do something to show the world – and ordinary Russians – that it did everything it could to save an invasion. he thought. it would have ended well from the spring thaw. “You do not fire winning generals,” says military historian O’Brien. Dvornikov will have at his command the same poorly trained army that has already suffered thousands of deaths, according to NATO estimates. Putin almost certainly envisioned a triumphant parade on May 9, as Russia celebrates its victory in World War II. Now he has to prevent a complete defeat, a scenario that would have been unthinkable just two months ago. The sinking of the Moskva flagship earlier this week was a reminder of how incredibly effective the Ukrainian resistance has proved. (ARCHIVES) This archive photo taken on August 29, 2013 shows Moskva, a missile cruiser of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, entering the Bay of Sevastopol. The Russian warship Moskva was hit by two Ukrainian missiles before sinking in the Black Sea, a senior Pentagon official said on Friday, calling it a “major blow” to Moscow. / AFP / Vasiliy BATANOV “This part of the war is likely to be decisive,” Friedman said. “Victory does not seem likely,” he told the Kremlin, envisioning a protracted conflict with few substantive efforts for a peaceful settlement in the near future. The Russian military underwent a well-publicized reorganization in 2008, but poorly prepared units fighting in Ukraine are more reminiscent of the bloody and bloody first campaign in Chechnya – launched in 1994 by Putin’s predecessor Boris Yeltsin – rather than a technically effective . effort that a western army could have launched. A campaign focused on eastern Ukraine offers Russia some advantages, however, including open ground and shorter supply lines. “The Russians will want to take the Ukrainians out into the open, to the steppe,” Friedman said. “It’s less urban. “They will probably at least be able to have more games outside the cities.” But even new topographic advantages could be undone for the Russians if, as some believe, the spring rains turn unpaved roads into mud, making it difficult for maneuvers of tanks and armored vehicles to maneuver. Even before they were hit by the brutal Russian winter, German troops faced this fate in the autumn of 1941, as they pushed toward Moscow and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). “The weather will definitely be a factor in the war, as it always is,” the defense official told reporters Thursday, “and the fact that the ground is softer will make it harder for them to do anything outside the paved highways.” ». especially when it comes to logistics support. And, the official said, poor visibility could prevent Russia from regaining air superiority over Ukraine, a critical factor in any major attack. “It’s inside and out,” O’Brien said of Russia’s current air campaign. “Come in, drop your bomb, leave.” The lack of air support for ground units, combined with the relatively small size of the forces now preparing for the eastern campaign (the initial invasion included 130 battalions, twice that of Dvornikov), makes him skeptical. on the prospects of Russia. Ukrainian soldiers in Donbass last week. (Fadel Senna / AFP via Getty Images) The Ukrainians agree. They called on the West to help them deal a devastating blow. “Ukraine can win the next phase of this war with timely and appropriate Western support,” Natalia Bugayova wrote in a brief note to the Institute for War Studies, where she is a fellow. “The outcome of this phase is far from definite,” Bugayova added.