The Russian army is suffering huge losses in Ukraine, shows no sign it has improved its “meat grinder” tactics, and is struggling to sustain a stuttering offensive that is “advancing in meters not kilometres,” Britain’s defense secretary Ben Wallace said on Friday, speaking to the Financial Times on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
Despite fears that Russia is poised to launch a massive attack around the first anniversary of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Wallace said there was “no evidence of a big massing of Russian forces” akin to the assault on February 24 last year.
Wallace added that Kyiv’s western allies were “more resolved than ever” to help Ukraine repel Russian forces, and one clear sign was a strengthening of support from the US, which is now “committed to seeing the conflict through to the end.”
Yet Wallace also cautioned that the supply of western fighter jets to Ukraine was still a long way off. The modern fighter jet training the UK had offered to Ukrainian pilots was a “long-term resilience measure for after the war when Ukraine needs to defend itself.”
