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Ladimir Putin’s air force has an “adverse risk” that has been underperforming during the Ukrainian war and has left its ground troops “exhausted” as they are being asked to do so, leaders said on Monday. British Defense.
They said that the shortcomings of the Russian air force were a key factor in the limited success that Moscow is achieving in the conflict that will enter its fifth month.
The London Defense Ministry said the Russian president had developed a fleet of “modern and capable fighter jets”, but that this was not matched by “skill sets” or “institutional culture” as they go. get some air force in the West. .
Part of that failure was due to his air combat training focused on impressing senior officers rather than encouraging air crews to develop a “dynamic initiative,” he argued.
Defense leaders in the West are fighting in an information war against Russia, which is a key part of the conflict in Ukraine, so their claims must be addressed in this context.
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However, Russian statements must be treated with great caution as the Kremlin does not even accept that there is a war in Ukraine and its denials of war crimes and the deaths of thousands of civilians face reports generalized conflict zone. .
In its latest intelligence update, the Ministry of Defense said: “Russian air and ground operations have remained focused on the central sector of Donbas over the weekend.
“In the conflict so far, Russia’s air force has performed poorly. Its failure to deliver air power consistently is probably one of the most important factors behind the very limited success of the Russia.
He cannot gain total air superiority and has operated in a risk-averse style, rarely penetrating deep behind Ukrainian lines. “Some of the underlying causes of their difficulties are echoed by those of the Russian ground forces.”
He added: “For years, much of Russia’s air combat training has probably been heavily programmed and designed to impress senior officials, rather than developing a dynamic initiative among aircrews.
“While Russia has an impressive list of relatively modern and capable fighter jets, the air force has almost certainly failed to develop the institutional culture and skill sets necessary for its personnel to fulfill Russia’s aspiration to make a more western modern air campaign.
“This has caused a heavier-than-expected weight of effort to fall on the ground troops, who are running out; and in advanced cruise missiles, whose stocks are likely to run out. “
Putin’s generals have been seeking to seize the industrial city of Severodonetsk in the eastern province of Lugansk for weeks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has predicted that Russia will intensify its attacks this week.
“Obviously, we should expect Russia to intensify its hostile activities this week,” he said in a video address on Sunday night. “It simply came to our notice then. We are ready. “
Russia said on Sunday that it had seized Metyolkine, a village on the outskirts of the city, and the Russian state news agency TASS reported that many Ukrainian fighters had surrendered there. The Ukrainian military said Russia had “partial success” in the area.
Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai told Ukrainian television that a Russian attack on Toshkivka, 20 miles south of Severodonetsk, also “had some success.”
In Severodonetsk itself, a pre-war city of 100,000, Gaidai said Russia controlled “the main part,” but not the entire city after heavy fighting, with Ukrainian forces still resisting the chemical plant. Nitrogen where hundreds of civilians, including dozens of children, are refugees.
Both Russia and Ukraine have continued heavy bombardment around Severodonetsk “with few changes to the front line,” the British Defense Ministry said on Sunday.
Across the river, in the twin city of Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, residential buildings and private homes had been destroyed by Russian bombing, Gaidai said.
“People are dying on the streets and in the air raid shelters,” he warned.
Analysts at the Institute for War Study, a Washington-based think tank, wrote in a statement that “Russian forces will probably be able to seize Severodonetsk in the coming weeks, but at the expense of concentrate most of its available forces in this small area ”.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the Ukrainian war could last for years and urged Western governments to continue sending state-of-the-art weapons to Ukrainian troops, the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported.
“It simply came to our notice then. We must not stop supporting Ukraine, “he said.
In Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, in the northeast, the Russian defense ministry said its Iskander missiles had destroyed weapons recently supplied by Western countries.
Russian forces were trying to approach Kharkiv, which was heavily bombed early in the war, and turn it into a “front-line city,” a Ukrainian Interior Ministry official said.
Ukrainian troops counterattacked in the spring, with some soldiers arriving at the Russian border near Kharkiv but have since lost territory.
The governor of the Russian region of Bryansk said that the border town of Suzemka had been bombed from the north of Ukraine, one person was injured and a power plant was damaged.
The Ukrainian General Staff said that Russia had deployed a division of anti-aircraft missiles in Bryansk and had up to three battalion tactical groups covering the border in the neighboring regions of Bryansk and Kursk.
In southern Ukraine, Western armaments had helped Ukrainian forces advance six miles toward Russia-occupied Melitopol, its mayor said in a video posted on Telegram from outside the city.