The head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (GUR) Kyrylo Budanov predicts that the current offensive of the Russians on most of the front will be exhausted in the spring and will move to a new stage of the war in which Ukraine will once again take the initiative.

“Their crime will continue. By the beginning of spring, it will be used up,” said the head of the GUR in an interview during an information telethon on Wednesday morning of Ukrainian television. “Now it’s the enemy’s turn, but it will end, and I think we will start then,” Kyrylo Budanov said, according to EFE and Agerpres agencies.

Budanov acknowledged the advance of the Russians in some areas of the front, for example, around the city of Avdiyivka (eastern Donetsk region), but emphasized that the Kremlin is far from achieving its goals for this winter.

“The offensive operation of the Russian Federation is ongoing. It started in November 2023,” Budanov said about the “two and a half months” during which Russian troops regained the initiative on the battlefield.

The head of the GUR admitted that the Russians had achieved certain successes, but they were far from the stated goals of the Kremlin. According to Budanov, Russia intended this winter to capture the entire territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions (the territory of Donbass) and reach the Black Yerevet River during operations in the Kharkiv region (northeast).

The scenario presented by Kyiv’s military intelligence chief is similar to that of 2023, when Russia seized the initiative in the winter, focusing on the city of Bakhmut, which was eventually captured by the Russian military, and Ukraine launched a counteroffensive in June, with modest results as the Russian offensive lost its intensity .

Now Russia is trying to repeat in Avdiivka what it achieved in Bakhmut at an extremely high cost of human lives and equipment.

In an interview, Budanov explained that the supply of ammunition is the “number one” need of the Ukrainian army at the moment. Several Ukrainian military personnel recently interviewed by EFE acknowledged that the lack of ammunition is the main problem they face in the face of Russian attacks.

Some analysts doubt Ukraine’s ability to take the initiative in the spring if the White House fails to lift the blocking by Republicans in Congress of the $60 billion package proposed by the Biden administration to continue sending weapons to Ukraine in 2024, EFE also notes.

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