The Kremlin has vowed to “do everything possible” to stop Ukraine’s attack on Belgorod. Ukraine’s armed forces have killed and wounded dozens of the city’s residents in repeated missile and drone attacks in recent weeks. The deadliest attack on the city came on December 30, when 25 people were killed and more than 100 were injured, writes The Telegraph. “Of course, our military will continue to do everything to first minimize the danger and then eliminate it completely,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday. Unlikely offensive After Peskov’s statement, Russian voices have again been raised about demands for a large-scale offensive in the Kharkiv area. The goal is to create a “buffer zone” of 15 kilometers towards Belgorod Oblast. This is what the American think tank Institute for the Study of War writes in its latest war analysis. However, ISW also writes that the Russian military likely lacks the ability to carry out an operation to take significant territory in the short term. “A Russian conquest of 15 kilometers in depth and several hundred kilometers in width would be a massive operational commitment that would require a group of forces far larger, with significantly better resources, than Russian forces currently have along the entire front against Ukraine , least of all in Belgorod oblast,” writes the think tank. Need for rearmament According to several assessors, no major offensives will likely be carried out in 2024 – from any side – as both Russia and Ukraine are in great need of military rearmament. “Russia lacks the equipment and trained manpower to launch a strategic offensive until the spring of 2025, at the earliest,” asserts Michael Clark, former director general of the Royal United Services Institute.
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