Russian forces continued shelling cities over the weekend Ukrainian against the backdrop of a debilitating drive to seize more territory in the country’s east, with Ukrainian officials saying Moscow is having difficulty launching a long-awaited large-scale offensive.

One person was killed and another was wounded on Sunday morning as a result of the shelling of the city of Nikopol in the southeast of the Dnepropetrovsk region, Governor Serhiy Lysak said. The explosion damaged four residential buildings, a vocational school and a water treatment plant.

In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, one person was injured when three Russian S-300 missiles hit infrastructure overnight, regional governor Oleg Sinekhubov said.

Ukrainian forces also shot down five unmanned aerial vehicles — four Shaheds and one Orlan-10 reconnaissance aircraft — over the partially occupied Zaporozhye and Donetsk regions on Saturday evening, the Kiev military said.

The attacks come as Russian forces are trying to seize more land in Donbass’ eastern industrial zone, which consists of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. Ukrainian and Western officials have warned that Russia could launch a new wide-ranging offensive to try to turn the tide of the conflict as the war nears its one-year mark.

However, Ukrainian officials say it would be difficult for Moscow to carry out such an attack.

“They are in big trouble with such a big attack,” Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov told Ukrainian television Saturday night.

“They launched an attack, they just don’t talk about it, and our troops are pushing it hard. The attack they were planning is already under way. But (this is not) the crime they were counting on,” Danilov said.

The US-based think tank noted that Russian military bloggers close to the Kremlin also doubt Moscow’s ability to launch a broad offensive in Ukraine. “They remain discouraged by the Kremlin’s prospects for launching a major offensive,” says the latest report from the Institute for the Study of War.

“War can last for years”

Earlier this week, the owner of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, which is heavily involved in the fighting in Ukraine, said the war could go on for years.

Yevgeny Prigozhin said in an interview published late Friday that it could take Russia 18 months to two years to fully control Donbas. He added that the war could continue for three years if Moscow decides to seize more territory east of the Dnieper.

A statement by Prigozhin, a millionaire with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been dubbed “Putin’s chef” for his lucrative contracts with the Kremlin, signaled the Kremlin’s acknowledgment of the difficulties in the campaign, which was originally supposed to be completed within weeks when Russian troops invaded Ukraine February 24th.

In the autumn, Russia suffered a series of humiliating setbacks when the Ukrainian military launched successful counteroffensives to recapture large areas in the east and south.

On Sunday, Prigozhin said Wagner fighters had captured the village of Krasnaya Gora north of Bakhmut, a strategic town that has seen fighting in recent months.

Source: Associated Press.