The invasion is at an inflection point that few would have predicted.
A Ukrainian soldier eyes a soccer ball during a pickup game in Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv Saturday.
But it also defers, perhaps indefinitely, the broader threat to Ukraine as a whole, fundamentally changing the nature of the war. It was too early for most of the town’s former residents to contemplate returning, and officials — both local and military — have cautioned against it until thorough demining operations have taken place.“After 25 days of nonstop shelling, the silence makes you uncomfortable,” said Ruslan Stepura, 44, a soldier in a volunteer battalion that defended Irpin. “But when it’s silent, it’s like a miracle.
The military is in the process of calling up new conscripts, which could add 100,000 more soldiers to its ranks. It is also generating 10 new battalion tactical groups, the core fighting unit of the Russian army, to replace some of those lost in the first weeks of fighting, said a senior Western official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive subjects.
The 190,000 troops that launched the initial invasion included 75 percent of the country’s combat-ready troops, according to the Pentagon, and the replacements won’t be as capable or well trained as those, the Western official said. It’s also not going to be easy for Russia to justify a more limited goal to the Russian public, he said.
“Don’t mislead and demoralize our people and our troops with crazy messages,” he said, referring to talk of “de-escalating” in Kyiv and Chernihiv.
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