Russian troops have taken control of the city of Dzerzhinsk in Donetsk, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced.
"As a result of active offensive actions by units of the 1st, 9th, and 132nd Motorized Infantry Guard Brigades of the 51st Army and the volunteer formation 'Veterans' of the 'Center' force group, the city of Dzerzhinsk of the Donetsk People's Republic has been captured," the statement said.
The Russian advance has naturally caused panic and outrage in the U.S. and Kyiv, amid Russia's demands for peace.
CONTINUE READING
Η προφητεία του Ντέμη Ρούσσου από το 1995: Ο «Αρμαγεδδών» και η τρομακτική πρόβλεψη για το 2025
The unfortunate reality for the West is that Russian troops continue their advance, and it is well known that the territories they capture are never relinquished.
The Russian war machine is growing, the former Lithuanian Foreign Minister warned
Moscow has repeatedly threatened the NATO alliance, as Russia is at war with the West, rebuilding and modernizing its military, producing more weapons, and aligning all its forces with nations hostile to the West.
Gabrielius Landsbergis, who served as Lithuania's Foreign Minister until the end of last year—a country that is both an EU and NATO member and shares a border with Russia—told Business Insider that Russia is investing heavily in its military machine.
“The Russians are not only repairing tanks that have been in combat but also building new ones. They are creating drones and have been experimenting and testing new models for many years.
They are engaged in large-scale modern warfare, while the West has focused more on counterterrorism rather than preparing for a major war against an equally powerful adversary, leading to the atrophy of some critical global confrontation skills. I would say that Russia is probably more dangerous now than ever before,” the Lithuanian politician stated.
Keir Giles, a senior fellow at Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia program, said that Russia’s war in Ukraine does not rule out the possibility of Russia attacking elsewhere.
He noted that "the assumption that Russia’s failures in Ukraine mean it won’t attack elsewhere ignores Russia’s habit of convincing itself that it can achieve something and then attacking anyway."
“Whether Moscow gets it right or not, the consequences will be catastrophic,” the expert warned.
He also pointed out that Russia’s massive manpower losses—which Moscow deems insignificant—have not prevented it from continuing its assault on Ukraine.
Many of the professional soldiers with whom Russia started this war are now dead, as is a vast amount of its equipment.
The UK's Minister for the Armed Forces said in December that Britain believed more than 750,000 Russian soldiers had been killed or injured since the invasion began in late February 2022.
Estimates of Ukraine’s losses are even higher.
Russian sources report that the country is relying on expendable forces and decades-old stored equipment to fill gaps in its army.
Russia's economy and industry are operating in wartime mode with extensive overtime to rebuild and rearm, and as the top U.S. general in Europe put it, the country still has forces that are “largely intact” despite the war.
General Christopher Cavoli, the commander of U.S. European Command, also stated that the Russian military has grown in size.
"The claim that Russia is depleted is the most dangerous one," said Landsbergis, who continued by stressing, "To be honest, I think Russia is not only not depleted, but it is clearly in a wartime state," possessing "far more personnel than it had before the war." While these new troops have far less training than the soldiers Russia had at the start of the conflict, they are still gaining invaluable experience.
George Barros, a military analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, stated that Russia “is both willing and capable of positioning itself to potentially attack NATO’s eastern flank,” which includes Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
Many European countries are sounding the alarm that Russia may attack them.
