Small shifts in territorial control matter less than the overall balance of forces, which analysts say could shift back in favor of Ukraine in the coming months.
Members of Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces stop on a road that leads to Lysychansk on June 21, 2022. They have been fighting Russian forces that have for weeks been concentrating firepower on Lysychansk and Severodonetsk. The Russian military will soon exhaust its combat capabilities and be forced to bring its offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region to a grinding halt, according to Western intelligence predictions and military experts.
Capturing Lysychansk presents a challenge because it stands on higher ground and the Donetsk river impedes Russian advances from the east. So instead, Russian troops appear intent on encircling the city from the west, pressing southeast from Izyum and northeast from Popasna on the western bank of the river.
Officials refuse to offer a time frame, but British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, citing intelligence assessments, indicated this week that Russia would be able to continue to fight on only for the “next few months.” After that, “Russia could come to a point when there is no longer any forward momentum because it has exhausted its resources,” he told the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung in an interview.
“I remain very optimistic that Ukraine is going to win, and that by the end of this year Russia will be driven back to the Feb. 24 line,” he said, referring to the boundaries of Russian-occupied areas in Crimea and Donbas captured during fighting in 2014 and 2015. “Right now it sucks to be on the receiving end of all this Russian artillery. But my assessment is that things are going to be trending in favor of the Ukrainians in the next few weeks.
Another unknown is the extent of Russian artillery stocks, which Western intelligence agencies had initially underestimated, the Western official said.
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