Russia ‘may try to reactivate its early plans to invade Ukraine on war anniversary’ | Russia

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Ukrainian military officials believe Russia may try to re-enact a version of its original plans for invasion. As Volodymyr Zelensky warned last weekend, Vladimir Putin still has enough missiles to order more heavy strikes.

Ukraine’s president was speaking in the wake of the latest wave of missiles targeting his country’s vital energy infrastructure after Russia fired 98 missiles at 20 cities and towns on Friday.

But officials said on Saturday that repairs were swift with water supplies restored across Kyiv and two-thirds of the capital now connected to electricity while the country’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, has been reconnected to the grid after suffering a total blackout. .

The infrastructure upgrade arrived just as a Ukrainian military commander warned that Russia might try again to seize Kyiv after invading from Belarus in the north, possibly in late February when Putin ordered his forces to invade.

The war in Ukraine

Major General Andrei Kovalchuk revealed that he can “anticipate” Russian forces trying to invade Ukraine from the north, east and south.

During an interview with Sky News Kovalchuk said: “We expect such options, such scenarios. We are preparing for it. We live with the idea that they will attack again. This is our mission.”

His assessment led many analysts to agree that the 10-month war had reached another pivotal phase, with both sides fighting their way to a stalemate, prompting Ukrainian military figures to plead with the West for more weapons to regain the initiative.

Their nerves are unlikely to have been helped by reports that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak may adopt an overly cautious approach after asking for an assessment of the war’s progress. Sunak’s request reportedly upset some in Whitehall, with military leaders insisting that arms supplies to Ukraine could be crucial during the coming winter months.

Last February, Russian forces poured across the border from Belarus toward the Ukrainian capital, less than 20 miles from central Kyiv. However, the offensive was halted before Ukrainian forces counter-attacked to drive the Russians out of the city, and eventually across the border with Belarus.

Ukrainian soldiers fire artillery at Russian positions near Bakhmut in the Donetsk region. Photo: Libkos/AP

Kovalchuk said that Kyiv would be more ready to push back Putin’s forces in the event of a repeat of the scenario, adding, “It will not be the case that they will simply leave, as on February 24.”

The Guardian revealed last week in an interview with Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, that Putin is preparing a new major offensive in the new year.

Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Gen. Valery Zalogny, also revealed this week that he expects another large-scale offensive on Kyiv early next year. The Russians are preparing about 200 thousand new soldiers. “I have no doubt they will have another try in Kyiv,” Zaluzhny told The Economist.

Some analysts doubt Moscow will be able to launch a new ground offensive against Kyiv early next year, believing that Russian forces are unprepared, battered, and exhausted.

Meanwhile, the Defense Department, in its latest intelligence update on Saturday, confirmed an “increase” in Russia’s long-range strike campaign against Ukraine’s critical national infrastructure.

Among the victims of the latest strikes was a young child who was lured by emergency crews from the rubble of an apartment building in the central city of Kryvyi Rih. “Rescuers recovered the body of a one-and-a-half-year-old boy from the rubble of a house destroyed by a Russian missile,” Valentin Reznichenko, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, where Kryvyi Rih is located, wrote on Telegram.

In total, four people were killed in the raid, and 13 were wounded — four of them children — authorities said. Reznichenko wrote that the victims were “a 64-year-old woman and a young family with a young son.”

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