RF preparing for a new offensive – ISW

Russia is creating conditions to launch offensive efforts in the coming months, probably in the Luhansk Region.

RBC-Ukraine reports this with reference to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Analysts cited NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's January 30 statement that there are no signs that Moscow is preparing for peace talks, and that everything points to the contrary.

The report notes that he says Russia can mobilize up to 200,000 troops and continues to purchase weapons and ammunition through increased domestic production and partnerships with authoritarian states such as Iran and North Korea.

The experts also recalled the words of Ivan Tymochka, the head of the Council of Reservists of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who informed that the occupiers are strengthening their grouping in Donbas as part of the expected offensive.

"The statements of Stoltenberg and Tymochka confirm the ISW's previous forecast that Russian troops are creating conditions for the start of an offensive, probably in the Luhansk Region in the coming months," the Institute for the Study of War emphasized.

In addition, according to analysts, Russian military bloggers continued to say that the conditions were being created for the Russian offensive, and Moscow had "not yet used all its reserves."

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, the Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed 490 more occupiers over the past day. In total, since the beginning of the full-scale war, about 126,650 soldiers of the Russian Federation have already been eliminated.