Vadym Skibitskyi, Deputy Head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, stated in an interview with the Financial Times that Russia is preparing a new ground offensive in southeastern Ukraine and aims to seize the entire Donbas by September.
To achieve this, according to Skibitskyi, Russia is preparing a new ground offensive in southeastern Ukraine, using its strategic reserve to add 20,000 new troops to its forces within the country. With approximately 680,000 soldiers on the ground, Russia aims to seize the entire Donbas by September.
In a comment to UNN, military-political observer of the "Information Resistance" group Oleksandr Kovalenko noted that the specified number of Russian military personnel would not be enough.
This is about the fact that the Russians have a serious problem in the South Donbas direction, for example. For them, the South Donbas direction is Huliaipole, the Haichur River, the interfluve of Vovcha, Vorona, and also Pokrovske in Dnipropetrovsk region, along the M-15, P-85 highway... they were priorities for the end of 2025, beginning of 2026. It was precisely for the continuation of their main offensive actions that they concentrated maximum attention there, focusing their main forces and means there. Today, more than 100,000 personnel are concentrated in this area, but at the same time, they are suffering defeats there. They cannot launch any large-scale offensive campaign there now, and 20,000 will definitely not be enough for them to somehow break this parity to the level of a full-fledged offensive campaign.
He noted that if we talk about the Donetsk region, the Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad agglomeration, where about 170,000 personnel are currently concentrated, and they cannot break through this line - Pokrovsk, Myrnohrad, Kostiantynivka, Chasiv Yar and reach the Dobropillia direction, then 20,000 troops will not help them.
They, most likely, if they use this potential, it will be support, in my opinion, for the eastern flank of the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk bridgehead, the former Siversk direction. But it is unlikely that they will concentrate it precisely in this direction. They will strengthen the southern direction exclusively for their propaganda purposes to demonstrate that they can not only solve offensive issues, even of a tactical nature, such as capturing some bush or forest belt in Donetsk region, but also in the south, where recently, in the last few months, they have been retreating. They will strengthen precisely this location, and 20,000 is not enough to make any breakthrough. You just need to look at what losses the Russian occupiers suffer almost every day and during a week, two weeks, a month in the combat zone in Ukraine. What are these 20,000, taking into account the losses suffered by the Russian occupiers?
According to him, when the Russian occupiers start active hostilities, they lose more than 1.5-2 thousand personnel.
That is, for an offensive campaign, this is approximately one and a half weeks of active hostilities. Can such a resource break through the defense? No, it cannot. It is possible to partially solve some of their tactical tasks set for the units, but these 20,000, I do not think they will be concentrated in some narrowly specialized way on some separate areas, most likely, they will be somehow dispersed along the front line to strengthen and compensate for the losses of many units that suffered these losses during February, March and the first half of April.
War with Europe and general mobilization
The Washington Post analysts reported that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin may be preparing for a conflict with Europe this spring. According to the publication, Russian dictator Putin is under pressure: the war against Ukraine has reached a stalemate, the economy is weakening, and the positions of allies have wavered. Against this background, the Kremlin may consider a new escalation - against Europe.
According to analysts, Russia may try to act before Europe fully rearms and Ukraine gains long-range capabilities.
Experts emphasize that Europe remains the key direction for the Kremlin, and the war against Ukraine is an "unfinished business" for Putin.
In this context, Kovalenko notes that it is quite likely that a general mobilization may be announced in Russia, but it will, in his opinion, rather have a hybrid format.
They will somehow cover it with some moments. It will be a partial mobilization, as it happened in the fall of 2022, it could be something else. They will not openly declare it as a general mobilization, because it is the collapse of all their propaganda, which they built since 2022, that it is a "special military operation," as they called it, to avoid any correlation with such a concept as war, then accordingly for Russia it is an exit from the UN. A country that wages an open war does not have appropriate powers in the UN. It is very important for Russia to have this platform to continue to somehow influence the international community and somehow integrate its narratives. Therefore, it will consistently avoid any parallels with war. It will call all this at least in its internal information space some kind of operation.
He emphasizes that in general, Russia will continue the tradition of hybrid formats, and even if it conducts a general mobilization, it will call it whatever other names, but not a general mobilization.
Partial 2.0. For the needs of the country's defense, but not war, not mobilization precisely in the format of war. If we talk about the threat to the Baltic countries, Russia has this potential. This potential is strengthened by the fact that the Baltic countries - Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia are not at all ready to counter Russian aggression.
Situation in the south
In a comment to UNN, the spokesman for the Southern Defense Forces, Vladyslav Voloshyn, noted that enemy activity in the south is the same as before the Easter holidays.
The Russians bring the number of assault actions to 20-25 combat clashes. This is only assaults. Approximately the same number of air strikes, drone strikes, artillery shellings. That is, they used the Easter truce to conduct a partial regrouping, to carry out various logistical support actions, replenish personnel, deliver ammunition, evacuate the wounded, bring in new units that had previously been trained at training grounds located in the temporarily occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson regions, and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. They are not reducing, but on the contrary, increasing activity to maintain a high intensity of hostilities in the south.
He noted that over the past day, 9 combat clashes were recorded in the Huliaipole direction, and three in the Oleksandrivka direction.
In total, 15 combat clashes were recorded in the south over the past day, three of them in the Prydniprovskyi direction. However, the Defense Forces of Ukraine also actively conducted their reconnaissance and search and assault actions to destroy the enemy who is trying to infiltrate the territory controlled by us. We also conducted more than a dozen reconnaissance and search actions when we destroyed the enemy. That is, it is already approximately reaching the number that was before the holidays.
According to him, in the south, against the Defense Forces, there are more than 200,000 Russian personnel, up to a thousand tanks, about 3,000 armored combat vehicles, about 2,000 guns, mortars, and MLRS.