Russia is accumulating reserves and aims to crush the Ukrainian Armed Forces within a year and a half – expert said

Russia is accumulating “significant reserves” in the rear to launch an offensive and defeat the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) within a year and a half.

This was stated by a military expert of the Russian opposition newspaper “Novaya Gazeta” Valery Shiryayev in an interview with journalist Alexei Pivovarov, citing his sources.

According to Shiryayev, he received such information from two serving Russian military commanders responsible for front-line areas.

“One said: the complete defeat of the AFU, if everything goes as it is now, is possible within a year. And the other said – within a year and a half. But they all made a reservation: if there are no political processes interfering,” Shiryayev said.

The expert stated that Russian forces are aiming to reach the left bank of the Dnieper within these time frames and “defeat the AFU grouping on the left bank.”

In his opinion, Ukraine is currently in a difficult position because Russia is “tearing apart” the reserves of the AFU in various directions and employing a tactic of attrition.

“You (Ukraine) will always lack both time and, most importantly, strength. This is the general exhaustion of the army and the military-industrial complex. Under these conditions, there is slow, not very noticeable degradation of the military organism. And it’s more like how a person gets sick, and slowly their health deteriorates, and suddenly at a certain stage, all diseases start to cling to them,” Shiryayev said.

“This slow suffocation, also called the tactic of a thousand cuts, when a stronger opponent does not rush to quickly deliver powerful blows, which will cost them a lot of strength and resources. Instead, it forces the opponent to slowly, month after month, spend their forces to bring them to a state of military exhaustion,” he added, describing Russia’s current tactics.

According to Shiryayev, if the “exhaustion of Ukraine’s military organism” continues, negotiations on ceasing hostilities and agreements on “where to stop” are quite possible.

But if the United States unblocks aid and provides “a very large amount of weapons,” and if Ukraine can conduct a large-scale mobilization, then negotiations will not take place, the expert believes.