According to U.S. and Ukrainian officials, Russian artillery fire on Ukraine has fallen sharply from a peak several months ago, in some places by 75 percent. The decline in bombings is further evidence of Russia’s increasingly weak position on the battlefield nearly a year after its invasion of Ukraine, officials told CNN, News.ro reported.

Officials interviewed by CNN did not offer a clear or unique explanation for the significant reduction in artillery fire. It is possible that Russia is rationalizing its munitions as its stockpiles have dwindled, or it could all be part of a broader reassessment of tactics in the face of the Ukrainian offensive.

Earlier this month, Russia suffered its worst military casualties since the start of the war in Ukraine, when Ukrainian forces shelled a school in Makiivka, a small town in the Donetsk region. The Russian occupiers turned the building into a barracks, and hundreds of recruits were inside. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 89 servicemen were killed as a result of this strike. But the Makiivka attack also destroyed Russian military equipment and supplies stored at the same school, prompting Russian military bloggers to question the competence of the military responsible.

This strike may be just a drop in the bucket, but the bucket is getting smaller and smaller, said a US defense official quoted by CNN.

On the other hand, Ukraine enjoys increased military support from Western allies, and Britain is considering sending battle tanks to Ukraine for the first time.

From special operations to war with depleted supplies

Meanwhile, Russian leader Vladimir Putin appears to be trying to shore up domestic political support for the war, which he initially described as a limited “special military operation,” according to U.S. intelligence officials. By this logic, US officials believe that the 36-hour truce that Putin ordered last week in Ukraine to allow Orthodox Christmas to be celebrated was nothing more than an attempt to please the Russian population and an opportunity for Putin to accuse Ukrainians of violating it by portraying them as heretics. pagans

Until now, questions about Russia’s weapons stockpile have focused mainly on their high-precision munitions, such as cruise and ballistic missiles. But U.S. officials said the sharp decline in artillery fire may indicate that the protracted and brutal battle has had a significant impact on Russia’s supply of conventional weapons. Last month, a senior US military official said Russia had been forced to resort to 40-year-old artillery shells as its stockpile of new munitions dwindled.

The US believes that the use of spent ammunition, as well as the Kremlin’s proximity to countries such as North Korea and Iran, is a sign of Russia’s shrinking arms stockpile.

In addition, the rationalization of munitions and the reduction of attacks appear to be at odds with Russian military practice, which traditionally involves intensive bombardment of a target area with massive artillery and missile fire. This strategy could be seen at the beginning of the war in cities such as Mariupol and Melitopol.

Officials also say that the change in strategy, on the other hand, may be the result of the performance of Russia’s newly appointed theater commander, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, who the U.S. considers more competent than his predecessors.

On the other hand, Ukraine had no choice but to rationalize its ammunition since the beginning of the war. Ukrainian forces quickly depleted their own stocks of Soviet 152mm ammunition when the conflict broke out, and although the US and its allies provided hundreds of thousands of Western 155mm ammunition, even these stocks were limited.

As a result, Ukraine released an average of about 4,000-7,000 artillery shells per day, which is much less than Russia.

The reduction in the rate of Russian fire is not linear, the US Defense Department official said, and there are days when the Russians still use heavy artillery, particularly around the eastern Ukrainian cities of Bakhmut and Kreminna, as well as in some areas near Kherson in the south.

U.S. and Ukrainian officials have given very different estimates of Russian shelling, with U.S. officials saying the rate has dropped from 20,000 rounds a day to about 5,000 a day on average. According to CNN’s estimates, in Ukraine, the figure dropped from 60,000 to 20,000 per day. But both estimates indicate a similar downward trend.

Incorrect judgments of Americans

Although Russia still has far more artillery munitions available than Ukraine, initial US estimates have greatly overestimated the amount Russia has, a US military official said. In Washington, on the contrary, they underestimated the extent to which the Ukrainians would be able to strike Russian material and technical bases.

Russia now appears to be focusing more on strengthening its defenses, particularly in the center of the Zaporizhia region, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said on Sunday in its regular frontline situation report. These actions indicate that Moscow is concerned about a potential Ukrainian offensive there or in Luhansk, the ministry said.

“A major Ukrainian advance in Zaporizhzhia would seriously question the viability of the Russian land bridge connecting Russia’s Rostov region with Crimea, while Ukraine’s success in Luhansk would undermine Russia’s stated military goal of liberating Donbas,” the British explained in the ministry.

On the other hand, tensions between Kremlin defense officials and the leaders of the Wagner Group have also risen amid public complaints by mercenaries that they have run out of equipment and reports that their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin wants to take control of the mines.jumps from Bakhmut. “This year we will win! But first we will overcome our internal bureaucracy and corruption,” Prigozhin says in the video. “After we defeat our internal bureaucracy and corruption, we will defeat the Ukrainians and NATO, and then the whole world. The problem now is that the bureaucrats and those involved in corruption are not listening to us now, because on New Year’s everyone drinks champagne,” says Prigozhin.

Why are the Russians dying to take Bakhmut

In the US, they believe that Prigozhin’s ambitions will not be limited to increasing political power. There are also signs he wants to take control of the lucrative salt and limestone mines near Bakhmut, a senior US administration official said. “This is consistent with Wagner’s operation in Africa, where the group’s military activities often work hand-in-hand with its control of mining assets,” the official said. In the United States, it is believed that these material incentives explain the “obsession” of Prigozhin and Russia to conquer the city of Bakhmut.

The official also said that the Wagner Group has also suffered heavy losses in its operations near Bakhmut since late November. “Of its nearly 50,000 mercenaries (including 40,000 convicts), the company suffered more than 4,100 killed and 10,000 wounded, including more than 1,000 killed between late November and early December near Bakhmut,” he said. official, adding that approximately 90% of those killed were convicts.

The official noted that Russia “cannot bear such losses.”

“If Russia eventually conquers Bakhmut, it will certainly mischaracterize it as a major victory. But we know that this is not the case. If for every city the size of Bakhmut, the price is thousands of Russians killed in seven months, that is the definition of victory for Pyrrhus,” the American official concluded.

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