Danilov said, “He has a need to show something to his people, and a great desire to do something big, as he sees it.”
Moscow is now making full use of hundreds of thousands of troops in its first mobilization since World War II, after Russia failed to capture Ukraine’s capital Kyiv last year and lose ground in the second half of 2022.
In the past few weeks, Russia has claimed its first gains for half a year. But progress has been incremental, with Moscow yet to capture a single major population center in its winter campaign despite thousands of casualties.
Fighting has been centered for months around Ukrainian-held Bakhmut in eastern Donetsk province, a town with a pre-war population of about 75,000. Russia has made clear progress toward encircling it from both the north and the south, but Kyiv says its outpost is fast catching up.
Danilov echoed Kyiv’s earlier predictions that Russia still wanted to annex all of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east, which Moscow claimed as its own territory last year, in a showdown by Ukraine and the West. In the referendum rejected as.
Moscow has also launched an offensive further south against Vuhladar, a Ukraine-controlled stronghold in Donetsk province on high ground at the strategic crossroads between the eastern and southern front lines.