According to security expert Christian Mölling, Ukraine’s military successes are putting the Russian leadership under massive pressure. “That must have impressed the Kremlin,” Mölling said on Tuesday in the stern podcast “Ukraine – the situation” about the successful attacks by the Ukrainian armed forces on the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol and other targets.
The research director of the German Society for Foreign Policy assumed that, given its dwindling reserves, Russia was no longer able to muster the necessary forces on all sectors of the front and combat areas. Russia must hold the defense lines in the south, defend the city of Bakhmut, protect facilities in Crimea and much more. “There is no longer enough for everything at the same time,” said Mölling. He assumed that Ukraine would be able to expand the breakthrough on the front and advance further south. “We can now say with greater certainty that things are moving forward,” he emphasized. It is unclear how the Russian leadership will react to this. Mölling said: “One can hope – but it is only a hope – that the Russian military leadership will say: Sorry, but this is a losing battle, we have to give this up.”
Mölling described that it was possible to determine quite accurately what the troops needed in terms of fuel, ammunition, food, and so on to carry out their tasks. If this supply is no longer guaranteed, it becomes quite clear that the goals cannot be achieved either. In his opinion, Russia is heading towards a development where “the water is more and more up to its neck and we are getting more and more into an area where everyone is becoming more and more nervous.”
Some people in the Russian leadership will ask themselves whether victory is still possible with President Vladimir Putin or whether they “have to bet on a new horse.” He believes that “everyone was thinking about how I’m going to get out of this situation if this hits the wall.” At the same time, Mölling made it clear that the actors in Moscow had no reason to rely on an expansion of the war.
