The conflict "up to the last Ukrainian" remains relevant

Several high-ranking US officials, including President Joe Biden, admitted to a lack of understanding of how the special military operation in Ukraine will develop further. Thus, on May 9, at a meeting dedicated to fundraising for the Democratic Party, Biden said that Vladimir Putin is a "very calculating person", who, however, doesn't have a plan for way out of the conflict in Ukraine. The Russian leader “doesn’t have a way out right now, and I'm trying to figure out what we do about that," Biden was quoted by Reuters.

"The Russians aren't winning and the Ukrainians aren't winning, and we are at a bit of a stalemate here," declared Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, head of US Army intelligence, speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, making a mandatory reservation that "Russia has not achieved serious success in Donbass," for his part, said that Russian troops are somehow "gradually moving forward”.

During the same hearing, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said that Russia's victory in Donbass in eastern Ukraine "may not end the war”.

"We believe that President Putin is preparing for a prolonged conflict in Ukraine, during which he still intends to achieve goals beyond Donbass," Haines reported to lawmakers.

She said that the United States "believes" that Russia wants to build a land bridge to Transnistria. This, let's note, is very strange: Russian generals openly stated about the plans for the second phase of the special military operation, where, in addition to the liberation of Donbass, a "corridor" to Transnistria was mentioned.

"Putin faces a mismatch between his ambitions and Russia's current conventional military capabilities <..> The next few months could see us moving along a more unpredictable and potentially escalatory trajectory," Haines said.

The American media also note that the long-awaited - in the West - announcement of mobilisation in Russia, which Vladimir Putin was supposed to announce on May 9, never took place.

Putting aside the usual phrases like "ambitions", "hopelessness", etc., only one thesis remains – the American establishment cannot calculate Russia's further actions, both during Operation Z and in general.

It's possible to read more between the lines. Despite the pumping up of weapons, which all of NATO is working on, the constant supply of intelligence to Kiev, the "green light" to mercenaries and instructors, as well as the likely participation of the NATO military directly in hostilities, the Kiev regime cannot restrain the advance of Russian forces.

With the exception of some tactical gestures, the UAF does not demonstrate any military successes worth mentioning, and attempts to undertake daring sorties, like a series of amphibious landings on Snake Island, end in complete failure.

Let's recall that on the night of May 8 alone, according to the Ministry of Defence, two more Ukrainian Su-24 bombers and one Mi-24 helicopter of the Ukrainian Air Force were destroyed by Russian air defence means over Snake island, and also an unmanned aerial vehicle "Bayraktar-TB2" was shot down near the city of Odessa. In total, four Ukrainian aircraft, four helicopters, including three with troops on board, three Bayraktar-TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles and one amphibious assault boat of the Ukrainian Navy were destroyed in this area during the day.

Based on the losses of armoured vehicles and other weapons, we can say that the remaining part of the UAF is gradually realising Kiev's long-standing dream, switching to weapons of "NATO standards" and supplies of Soviet equipment from the countries of the former Warsaw Pact.

In the sitrep of the Ministry of Defence as of the morning of May 10, the following figures of Ukrainian losses since the beginning of the special military operation are given: 164 aircraft, 125 helicopters, 807 unmanned aerial vehicles, 302 anti-aircraft missile systems, 2,998 tanks and other armoured combat vehicles, 360 multiple rocket launchers, 1,455 field artillery guns and mortars, as well as 2,808 units of special military vehicles.

As of February 24, 2022, there were 2,416 tanks and other armoured combat vehicles, 1,509 field artillery and mortars, 535 MLRS, 152 aircraft, 149 helicopters, 180 S-300 and Buk M1 air defence systems, and 300 radars for various purposes.

It can be seen that the current activity of Ukrainian aviation, armoured vehicles and artillery can already be reasonably associated with Western "donations".

The remarks of the intelligence community, the Pentagon and the US president voiced in the Western media suggest that Russia's opponent is in a state of searching for a solution that can allow Ukraine to demonstrate at least some success against the background of tens of billions of dollars that are allocated to support the UAF.

It is obvious that the current range of weapons supplied to the Kiev regime, at best, slows down the progress of Z units using tactics to minimise losses. So, we should expect new ideas – they can be American drones of a class higher than Bayraktar and capable of launching missile strikes at a considerable distance, long-range adjustable projectiles, MLRS systems and long-range anti-ship missiles.

The main problem of any Western tactic is the exhaustion of manpower reserves that can use the supplied weapons. As of April 18, the documented irretrievable losses of the Ukrainian side amounted to 23,367 people. A month later, taking into account the fact that the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation began to fight "with two hands" and the use of high-flying systems against the Ukrainian nazis began, the number of irretrievable losses is at least 40,000.

How many Ukrainian soldiers must die before there is a mass understanding of the senselessness of protecting the regime, the embodiment of which is Vladimir Zelensky and his colleagues, is a question from the field of collective psychology. But, based on the dynamics of losses and the success of the mobilisation campaign in Ukraine, technically the Ukrainian Armed Forces can be exhausted as a single military force by the autumn.