War in Ukraine is set to be ‘much longer and bloodier’, former head of the Royal Navy warns

Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is far from over, and will continue to drag on and become even bloodier, the former Royal Navy chief has warned.

Speaking to MailOnline, Admiral Lord Alan West said the Russian despot doesn’t care if his people die in his desperate bid to take over the country, which he says has also thrown the world economy into chaos.

The former security minister and Cold War commander spoke as Ukraine prepared for a spring offensive that is expected to see some of the most brutal fighting since the war began on February 24, 2022.

Ukraine has exceeded expectations with its fierce defense of Kyiv and subsequent counter-offensives, but West, the former First Sea Lord, said if it weren’t for Western weapons supplies, Kyiv’s armies would already be being pushed back.

Speaking to MailOnline, Admiral Lord Alan West (pictured arriving for a service at Westminster Abbey, file photo) said the Russian despot doesn’t care if his people die in his desperate bid to take over the country.

I’m afraid it will be much longer and bloodier. I think that if we had not given Ukraine weapons, I think they would have begun to be rejected. This means they won’t be,” Lord West said.

‘Even then it will be a stalemate. The losses will continue. Putin does not care that his people die. He couldn’t give a shit about them.

‘It is totally unacceptable what you are doing. He is a disgusting guy. He has unleashed a complete plague on the world. People are starving, the world economy has been thrown into chaos – he is an absolutely terrible man.

His comments alluded to attempts by Russia, and specifically the Wagner mercenary group, to seize the key city of Bakhmut in the eastern Donbas region, a city in the north that has been the main focus of Russia’s offensive for months.

Wagner has rammed wave after wave of convicted soldiers against Ukraine’s defenses in what has been compared to a World War I meat-grinder battle.

Both sides have suffered heavy losses, but reports say that Russia in particular has been using Wagner’s mercenaries as cannon fodder to try to advance.

Ukraine has exceeded expectations with its fierce defense of Kyiv and subsequent counter-offensives, but West, the former First Sea Lord, said if it weren’t for Western weapons supplies, Kyiv’s armies would already be being pushed back. Pictured: A boy stands on a destroyed Russian tank pictured in central Kyiv, Ukraine, on January 31.

Lord West’s comments came as Britain said a large Russian force had advanced hundreds of meters in a major new assault on a Ukrainian-held stronghold in south-eastern Ukraine this week, but added it was unlikely to force a significant advance. in the region.

Russian officials claimed that the advance had secured a foothold in the coal mining town of Vuhledar. Kyiv has acknowledged heavy fighting there but says it has so far repelled the attack while inflicting heavy losses on the attackers.

In an intelligence update offering rare details of the battlefield, the British ministry said Russia was attacking the city with a force at least the size of a brigade, a unit that normally comprises several thousand soldiers with a wide range of capabilities. .

So far, the Russians had probably advanced from the south several hundred meters beyond the Kashlahach River, which was said to have marked the front line for months.

The small river flows on the edge of the town of Pavlivka, about two kilometers south of Vuhledar.

‘There is a realistic possibility that Russia will continue to make local gains in the sector. However, it is unlikely that Russia has enough uncommitted troops in the area to make an operationally significant breakthrough.

He said that Russian commanders were probably trying to develop a new axis of advance, as well as divert Ukrainian forces from Bakhmut.

A Ukrainian serviceman uses his foot to remove snow from the top of a BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle in the Donetsk region on January 30, 2023, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Vuhledar lies at the southern tip of Ukraine’s Eastern Front, overlooking the rail lines that supply Russian forces on the adjacent Southern Front.

Ukraine has repelled several Russian attacks on the city since the start of the war eleven months ago.

The Russian assault comes after Moscow made significant advances around Bakhmut in the past two weeks, its biggest achievements since Ukraine recaptured large chunks of territory in the second half of 2022. The momentum has turned to Russia in recent weeks after the front lines were frozen in place since November.

Military experts say Moscow is determined to make progress in Ukraine in the coming months, before Kyiv receives hundreds of newly promised Western tanks and armored vehicles for a counterattack to retake territory occupied earlier this year.

Bakhmut, a town once home to 100,000 people, looks increasingly vulnerable after Russia captured the northern salt mining town of Soledar about a week ago.

Moscow says it has made substantial progress on both the northern and southern outskirts of Bakhmut; Kyiv says the city itself is not yet in danger of falling, but the fighting there is heavy.

In the photo: Ukrainian soldiers carry a coffin during the funeral ceremony of Vitaly Svintsitskyi in the Latin Cathedral in Lviv, on January 30, 2023. Svintsitskyi was a deputy of the Lviv City Council, who from the first days of the war joined the the ranks of the 80. brigade

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described Russia’s assault on the east as an attempt to “revenge” its earlier losses.

‘And I think they won’t be able to provide their partnership with any convincing positive results on offense. I trust our army. We will stop them all, little by little, we will destroy them and we will prepare our great counter-offensive,’ he said on Monday.

Kyiv says the Russian assaults in recent weeks have come at an enormous cost, initially relying mainly on mercenaries, including thousands of convicts recruited from Russian prisons and sent into battle in waves of humans without proper training or equipment.

But Russia’s call-up for hundreds of thousands of reservists late last year means Moscow has now been able to rebuild regular military units depleted or depleted earlier in the war.

The British Defense Ministry statement said the assault on Vuhledar was led by a Russian naval infantry unit that had tried to attack the town in November without success.