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Russian President Vladimir Putin clearly underestimated the resolve of both Ukrainian soldiers and citizens.

As the country comes under siege from multiple angles, Ukrainian forces have pushed back Russian troops and reclaimed certain key areas.

Russian tanks have been wrecked in what The Telegraph has dubbed “devastating hit-and-run tactics”, and even in Mariupol, there are signs that Ukrainians are repulsing some of the sieges.

Remarkably, it appears that Russian troops may have arrived without adequate preparation for the weather:

…some of the Kremlin’s ill-prepared forces suffered frostbite and could no longer fight, according to US officials…

A senior US defence official said: “They [the Ukrainians] are now able and willing to take back territory the Russians have taken. It’s notable. Not only are the Ukrainians defending well, they’re making efforts to take back territory the Russians have taken in recent days.

Image: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

“Some of their [Russia’s] soldiers are suffering from frostbite because they lack the appropriate cold weather gear. We don’t think they properly planned.”

It’s been reported that some Russian soldiers are wearing Ukrainian combat boots because they’re better suited to conditions.

I really, really wouldn’t want to be a minister or general who has to report to Putin and give him that news.

On top of poor weather prep, Ukrainian military commanders allege that Russian forces have just three further days of fuel, food, and ammunition left due to breakdowns in their supply chains.

I’d be hesitant to believe every word of that because there’s an information war being fought alongside an actual war, but The Guardian says western officials say the claims are “plausible”:

The report from the Ukrainian armed forces general command was said to be consistent with evidence that the Russian advance had stalled, and that they had reverted to using “indiscriminate and attritional” artillery attacks on civilians.

“We do think that the Russian forces have used a lot of material including particular categories of weapons and we have seen isolated reports of particular units that have lacked supplies of one sort or another,” the official said.

Image: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

“It is consistent with an advance which has ground to a halt. Failures in the logistic chain has been one of the reasons they have not been as effective as they hoped.”

Low morale within Russian forces has been well documented and it’s believed that these latest setbacks have only worsened the situation.

The great fear is that these humiliations will lead to desperate acts by Putin.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, former UK and NATO commander of chemical, biological and nuclear defence forces, has said that it’s “absolutely” the case that Putin would consider using chemical weapons “because he is losing”:

“He’s in a last-chance saloon, he has to win and knows the chemical option is how to do it,” he told The Telegraph.

“He will use toxic industrial chemicals like chlorine because it’s completely deniable. There are thousands of tonnes of chlorine in Ukraine. He won’t use sophisticated weapons like Novichok.

“The Russians are following the Syrian playbook almost to the letter – attacking hospitals, schools, terrifying civilians into surrender. If that fails, what they did in Syria was use chemical weapons. Putin is convinced we will do nothing.”

There really is no such thing as a victory in modern-day warfare.

Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, which frequently posts pro-Russia reports, appears to have accidentally published a death toll in one of their stories. The line reading “9,861 Russian soldiers had been killed in action and another 16,153 had been wounded” was removed just minutes after it was published.

On the Ukrainian side, a figure is hard to come by but relief organisations have confirmed well in excess of 900 civilian deaths.

The actual number is most certainly far higher than that.

[sources:tele&guardian]