A veteran US general has said that President Vladimir Putin’s “exhausted” soldiers could be pushed back by Ukrainian forces back to their pre-war lines by 2023, wiping away any territorial gains the former had made.
According to Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of US Army in Europe, Ukraine’s capacity to drive Russian soldiers back to the current boundaries hinged on ongoing Western backing in the form of sanctions and weapon shipments.
Hodges said that the Russians were worn out and there was not much they could do at the moment. A significant portion of Putin’s force was already engaged in the conflict, he said, but after 20 weeks of fighting, Russia had not achieved much in terms of territorial gains.
Hodges further said that with the arrival of long-range rocket systems weapons Ukraine had pleaded for from the US and its partners for weeks, the “whole weight” of Western backing was just now starting to take form.
The destruction of Putin’s artillery and rocket arsenal, he said, would be a crucial component of Ukraine’s triumph.
While Russian forces were hindered by a dearth of resources and capabilities, Hodges said, Ukraine continued to enjoy a large morale edge, preventing Russians from making any progress on the battlefield.
Hodges claimed that Russian forces were prepared to continue fighting an “attrition war” because they could not do anything else. He opined that Putin may prolong the conflict until the end of the year in the hope that the West would lose interest in aiding Ukraine due to domestic concerns like gas prices or inflation.
