Putin's striving for symbolism to launch second offensive in February may play a cruel joke on Russia - military expert Zhdanov

He shared his opinions with Espreso TV.

"I don't see Russia forming any strike group to create a backbone or core to launch a massive offensive to try to penetrate at least the operational depth of our territories, 150 to 200 km. Russia no longer has this capability. Today they are appealing to human resources, but we must admit that they are unlimited. The Russian Federation can mobilize hundreds of thousands of people liable for military service. We see that human resources are arriving, but they do not concentrate them in one place, but accumulate them on the occupied territories, maximizing the density of troops there. The enemy has a huge problem with equipment, because the Russian industry is currently unable to meet the needs of the army. Perhaps this is prompting Russia to switch to the tactics of exhausting attacks, which they are conducting in the Donetsk direction, where they are trying to push through our defense at the expense of human resources," the military expert explained.

Oleh Zhdanov commented that the intentions of the Russian political leadership to resume the offensive on the symbolic date of last year's invasion, February 24, may play a cruel joke on Russia.

"Putin is very fond of these conspiracies, numerology, we can see it all the time in his actions, and he will demand something large-scale and big, and his generals will be forced to order the start of offensive actions in one or more operational directions. After all, the Russian troops' preparedness, which I have already described, does not correspond to the scale claimed by the political leadership of the Russian Federation. However, we can expect and should prepare for the enemy to try to do something in February, at least with the capabilities it will have at that time," Zhdanov said.

• On January 27, Bloomberg reported that Putin was preparing a new offensive against Ukraine, which could begin in February or March.