Kyiv fears that soon Russia will attack Ukraine simultaneously on three fronts, where it can gather an impressive number of troops, a confidant of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi told The Daily Beast.

Rustem Umerov, a close associate of Zelenskyi and a member of the negotiating team with Russia, said that the Kremlin may be preparing for a new offensive. He noted that Ukraine is under threat from several directions, but did not specify where the attacks could come from.

“The Russians are surrounding us at an angle of 240 degrees, they are attacking us from the Black Sea, from Belarus, and from the Luhansk and Donetsk regions,” Umerov said.

Russia recently claimed its first victory in the war after months of frontline setbacks, saying it had captured the salt town of Soledar in Donetsk region. On Friday, pro-Russian forces said Russian soldiers had captured another small town near Bakhmut, the site of fierce fighting and where Ukraine is reportedly losing hundreds of soldiers every day, German intelligence said.

There is still some controversy over the continued struggle for control of Soledar, but the Russians have clearly made territorial gains, but at a huge cost.

Mercenaries from the Wagner Group, Putin’s private army, led the attack on the nearby towns of Soledar and Bakhmut, and key to the attack were prisoners recruited by Yevgeny Prigozhin, most of them cannon fodder.

“They come from all sides, from three battle lines: criminals, private contractors and contract forces. Their goals are to get rid of their criminals, check and train their counterparties,” said Umerov.

Russia is building up new forces

Ukrainian intelligence and defense experts believe that all this is preparation for a large-scale ground offensive with the support of as many recruits as possible.

A former employee of the operational department of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Colonel Oleg Zhdanov, told The Daily Beast that the Ukrainian military and intelligence are monitoring the movements of Russian troops in real time.

“We are watching how Russia is building up large forces in the Zaporizhzhia region. It seems that they are planning a pincer attack from the directions of Kharkiv in the east and Zaporizhzhia in the south, they will try to capture all the main defense forces of Ukraine,” Zhdanov told The Daily Beast.

“We are also watching how the Russian military is constantly moving 10-12 thousand people to the north of Belarus. They are also strengthening their forces in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.”

One person can end the war in Ukraine

Colonel Zhdanov says that there is only one person in the world who knows when the war in Ukraine will end: US President Joe Biden. He believes that the war will continue until the White House approves the shipment of weapons requested by Ukraine.

“President Biden has a detailed script for this war in the White House. The sooner we get weapons, the sooner we will end the war, but it seems that the US wants Russia to exhaust all military efforts,” Zhdanov said.

“Russia now has a cult of death: at all levels, from propagandists to the Orthodox patriarch, Russians are being urged to go and die in this war, as their grandfathers died in previous wars.”

Putin’s rhetoric has changed

Russian President Vladimir Putin no longer talks about the “unity” of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples and has stopped calling on Russians to die for Russia’s ancient heritage.

The Kremlin presents this war as a strong battle against NATO.

Mykola Patrushev, Putin’s chief adviser, said: “The events in Ukraine are not a confrontation between Moscow and Kyiv; it is a military confrontation between NATO, and especially the United States and England, with Russia.”

“We fight with our bare fists”

Putin and Patrushev are graduates of Soviet KGB schools. They have always considered the United States and its allies to be enemies that deserve to be destroyed at all costs.

Ukraine is running out of ammunition and weapons. “We are fighting the Russians with our bare hands,” said Umerov.

An increase in military aid to Ukraine is “urgent” so it can retake occupied territory before Russia launches new offensives, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Friday at the end of a meeting in Ramstein, Germany, where Ukraine’s allies failed to do so. to reach an agreement to provide it with German Leopard tanks, in return promising Kyiv other types of weapons, including BMP and anti-aircraft systems, EFE said, citing Agerpres.

Read the most important information from 332nd day of the war in Ukraine