a year after the start of the Russian invasion, where is the military situation on the ground?
VIDEO – The conflict in Ukraine has become a long war of attrition in which large maneuvers are limited, but the intensity of the fighting has not diminished.
A year ago, Russian tanks entered Ukraine from the North, East and South. Without success, the invader attempted to encircle the country’s largest cities – notably kyiv and Kharkiv – and to seize the shores of the Black Sea. To date, Moscow has obtained only one strategic gain: controlling a land corridor along the Sea of Azov linking Crimea to Donbass and more broadly to Russian territory. Since the fall Ukrainian counter-offensives in Kharkiv and Kherson, the front line has largely frozen. The great Russian winter offensive has not yet taken place, but Moscow has regained the initiative and is nibbling ground in eastern Ukraine, particularly around Bakhmout, a fortified lock which Wagner’s troops did not have. not yet managed to seize.
Will this long war of attrition continue or will the two belligerents have sufficient forces to relaunch major maneuvers in the spring? What is the balance of military power to date? Could Russia still mobilize and does it have means of escalation? What about Western aid? What role can China, which is proposing a “peace plan” coldly received by Westerners, play in 2023? A year after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Le Figaro takes stock in video, with supporting maps, of the military situation.