War in Ukraine
The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Russia will soon exhaust its combat capabilities, Western assessments predict

Small shifts in territorial control matter less than the overall balance of forces, which analysts say could shift back in favor of Ukraine in the coming months

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Updated June 25, 2022 at 8:18 p.m. EDT|Published June 25, 2022 at 3:00 a.m. EDT
Members of Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces stop on a road that leads to Lysychansk on June 21. They have been fighting Russian forces that have for weeks been concentrating firepower on Lysychansk and Severodonetsk. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)
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The Russian military will soon exhaust its combat capabilities and be forced to bring its offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region to a grinding halt, according to Western intelligence predictions and military experts.

“There will come a time when the tiny advances Russia is making become unsustainable in light of the costs and they will need a significant pause to regenerate capability,” said a senior Western official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.