Ukrainian intelligence officials continue to assess that Russia lacks the combat power and resources needed to sustain its new offensive operations in Ukraine. Representative of the Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Vadym Skibitsky told the AP that Russian forces intensified their offensive operations...at the beginning of February but have yet to achieve any significant successes despite continuing to exhaust their personnel and resources.[4]...
GUR Chief Kyrylo Budanov stated in an interview with Forbes that the Russian offensive is so ineffective as to be almost unnoticeable and noted that Russian forces have been rationing shells...
Budanov added that Russian artillery stocks decreased to 30 percent of the total number of shells. He claimed that Russia has imported a test batch of artillery shells from Iran and is currently attempting to procure another batch of 20,000 shells. Budanov previously estimated that Russian forces fired about 20,000 shells per day in late December 2022, down from 60,000 shells per day during the early stages of the war.[7] Budanov also observed that Russian tactics around Bakhmut and Vuhledar have largely shifted from artillery and mechanized attacks to infantry assaults due to the lack of shells and armored vehicles. Budanov noted that Russia had committed more than 90 percent of its 316,000 mobilized personnel to the frontlines, which further confirms Western and ISW's assessments that Russian forces do not have significant untapped combat-ready reserves.[8]...
Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin directly accused the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) of mistreating Wagner forces, igniting intense backlash in the information space and supporting ISW's prior assessments of a growing Wagner-MoD fissure.[10] Prigozhin accused the MoD of lying about supplying all unconventional units with requested artillery ammunition...Prigozhin claimed that the MoD ...[of] attempting to hide the MoD's "crimes against fighters" who achieve battlefield successes near Bakhmut.[12] Prigozhin published...an image showing Wagner fighters dead...
[For more on that post see CNN here.]
Many prominent Russian milbloggers jumped to defend Prigozhin, spreading Prigozhin's claims and accusing the MoD of failing to support the supposedly most effective Russian forces in Ukraine.[15]...Prigozhin's complaints also confirm that his earlier boasts of Wagner's independence from the Russian MoD were lies.[17]
[CNN reports "Not everything Prigozhin says can be taken completely at face value. This is the man, after all, who helped bankroll one of Russia’s most notorious disinformation campaigns.that Prigozhin was the head of the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg that interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election."]
The money shot of this ISW brief and CNN's reporting is that, true or not, the wonder is that Prigozhin is able it at all. These are direct attacks on the Russian Ministry of Defense and Putin, to this point, has done nothing to stop them. Looking for a Russian coup d'etat leader? It's even money between Prighozhin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. This cannot continue.
