Contemplate the significance of the two subsequent statements:
Former US commanding general of the United States Army Europe, Lieutenant General Ben Hodges said on Monday that Russians are about 10 days away from reaching the “culminating point” . Once they reach there, the US commander said, the Russian troops will be “forced to stop their assault on Ukraine due to a lack of resources”. According to Lt Gen Hodges, “Russians are about 10 days away from what is called the culminating point, when they just no longer have the ammunition nor the manpower to keep up their assault.”
Russia has shown no signs of halting its assault on Ukraine despite the sanctions being imposed on it by the Western countries. However, experts are of the opinion that Russian forces will soon run out of resources.
15 March 2022
It’s now 34 days later, more than three weeks after the Russians ran out of ammunition and manpower, according to the US military experts.
While there are not official confirmations (that I know of) from the Russian military, it appears that Lavrov is the first, and so far only, Russian official who declared that the 2nd phase of the operation has begun. Truth be told, pretty much everybody else thinks likewise. Considering the intensity of Russian bombings and artillery strikes overnight, which were reported by numerous sources, it certainly appears reasonable to me to conclude that this 2nd phase has indeeed begun. For example, the Russian defense ministry reported on Tuesday morning that its troops had delivered artillery strikes at 1,260 Ukrainian military targets overnight, including 1,214 locations where Ukrainian troops amassed their forces.
How long this phase of the war will last is anybody’s guess. Optimists think a week, pessimists a month, but in reality nobody really knows because the outcome will be determined not by maneuver like during the first phase, but by logistics, specifically fuel and ammunition, in other words by mobility and firepower.
19 April 2022
So, it appears the Russians just might have some ammunition and manpower left, considering that they’re only now beginning the second phase of the Operation Z. So this raises the obvious question: is there any reason to suspect that the NATO forces might be projecting a shortage of ammunition and manpower onto their enemies?
Never, ever, listen to anyone the media anoints as an “expert”. Their expertise, such as it is, usually consists of their ability to repeat the media’s narrative with a straight face, no matter how obviously absurd it is.