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The morale of Russian troops on the front line is notably diminishing as Ukrainian forces conduct strikes along rear areas on the battlefield, a think tank said Sunday, three months into Kyiv's counteroffensive.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based think tank, said in its latest analysis of the conflict in Ukraine that Russian front-line units, particularly in the south of the country have frequently struggled with degraded morale following Ukrainian strikes on rear areas.
Ukrainian strikes on Russian rear areas are "demonstrably degrading" the morale of Russian forces in Ukraine, and this "could threaten the stability of Russian defenses on multiple critical areas of the front," the ISW said.
Ukraine is three months into a counteroffensive to recapture Russian-occupied territory seized throughout President Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion.
The ISW said morale issues can quickly intensify and spread among Russian frontline units if one unit under pressure breaks, which in turn could "spread panic" and "significantly reduce the combat effectiveness of other Russian forces."
"A broken Russian frontline unit would threaten the integrity of other frontline defenses, and such a break in the Russian frontline would provide a vulnerability that Ukrainian forces could exploit," the think tank added, assessing that Moscow's forces likely lack the necessary reserves to rotate out or quickly replace a broken unit, making the preservation of morale in front-line units imperative.
Newsweek has contacted Russia's Defense Ministry via email for comment.
Ukrainian forces are likely also working to increase the likelihood of Russian forces breaking under the pressure caused by morale issues, the ISW said.
The assessment comes days after a Russian commander called on Moscow to freeze the war along the current front lines, suggesting that he was pessimistic about the outlook of the war for Russia.
In a post on Telegram, Alexander Khodakovsky, commander of the Russian-backed "Vostok" battalion, acknowledged that his troops can't win, shortly after his forces were pushed out of Urozhaine in the Donetsk region.
"Can we win Ukraine militarily? Now and in the near future, no," Khodakovsky said.
"When I talk to myself about our destiny in this war, I mean that we will not crawl forward, like the [Ukrainians], turning everything into [destroyed] Bakhmuts in our path. And, I do not foresee the easy occupation of cities," he added, referring to the industrial city of Bakhmut, which has been one of the fiercest fighting spots of the war.
Khodakovsky said Russia and Ukraine will eventually enter a phase "of neither peace nor war" and reach a "truce."
He said this phase would be favorable to Moscow, if Russia "accepted the current territories [it controls] instead of continuing the special operation." The Kremlin uses the term "special military operation" to describe the ongoing war.
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About the writer
Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her focus is reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel ... Read more