Putin has limited options to continue war in Ukraine – Britain at OSCE

This was stated by Ian Stubbs, the Senior Military Advisor at the UK Delegation to the OSCE, who spoke at the Security Cooperation Forum in Vienna on Wednesday, Ukrinform reports.  

According to him, over the past two weeks, Russia has reportedly suffered its highest rate of casualties since the first week of the invasion of Ukraine. Russian military leadership has now likely deployed the vast majority of the reservists called up under the so-called partial mobilization and Wagner announced that it had halted its prisoner recruitment scheme.

So Stubbs believes that "the options for Putin and his military leaders to sustain their war of choice appear to be limited: continue to deplete their forces; scale back their objectives; or conduct a further form of mobilization".

"But there is another option: Putin could end this war now, withdraw all Russian forces from Ukrainian sovereign territory, and in doing so, stop his needless sacrifice of thousands more ordinary Russian people," he notes.

He believes that providing Ukraine with the support it "needs to defend itself and push Russia out of its sovereign territory" is the fastest and only path to a just and lasting peace. He recalled that the Joint British-Ukrainian Declaration signed on February 8 reaffirmed "our countries’ commitment to stand side by side in the face of Russia’s aggression." 

"The UK is working with Ukraine to help develop their longer-term force structures and capabilities, to reverse Russian gains and build towards a deterrence force of the future. We will support our Ukrainian friends as they fight to liberate their homeland. Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence will be fully restored", he noted.

• Earlier, Russian human rights defenders said that in Russia, students are forced to sign an application to pass the medical commission, and to come to the military commissariat.

• Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense, Hanna Malyar, emphasized that in some assault units losses amounted to 80%. Therefore, Russia uses "death squads" – insufficiently prepared mobilized people who suffer heavy losses on the battlefield.

• According to Deputy Permanent Representative of Ukraine to International Organizations in Vienna Natalia Kostenko, in the battle for Vuhledar, the Russian army has already lost almost its entire 5 000-strong marine brigade, as well as at least 130 units of military equipment, including 36 tanks.