Two months after invading Ukraine, Russia says its aim is full control of the Donbas region in the east as well as the south of the country.
It is still unclear what military means Moscow will deploy in this "second phase" of the Ukraine campaign, and what medium and long-term objectives it is pursuing.
On Friday, Russian Major General Rustam Minnekaev was quoted as saying that "one of the tasks of the Russian army is to establish full control over the Donbas and southern Ukraine", adding this would provide "a land corridor to Crimea", the peninsula Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014."The deeper Russian forces go into Ukraine, the more vulnerable they are," he said on Twitter.
"They realised that the Blitzkrieg option didn't work out," said Ausseur. "So they returned to the traditional Soviet bulldozer model: If you can't break the will of your enemies, you grind them down." Some experts expect the Russian army to try to trap Ukrainian forces in pincer movements east of the Dnipro River.
"Even if the vehicles come out of stocks already in Europe, they will require some servicing before they are ready for shipping," he said.
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