Author: Hlib Parfonov/Eurasia Daily Monitor

During the most recent Belt and Road summit in Beijing, Russia agreed to supply China with 70 million tons of grain, legumes and oilseeds worth 2.5 trillion rubles (about $25.7 billion) over the next 12 years (TASS, October 17). Head of the Russian company New Overland Grain Corridor, Karen Ovsepyan, declared, “We are definitely more...

Four months in, the Ukrainian counteroffensive has been slowly but steadily advancing along the Bakhmut, Melitopol and Berdyansk salients. Ukrainian forces have effectively retaken the initiative at sea with innovative drone strikes on Russian positions in and around Crimea (Euro­maidan Press, October 4). Russian forces gleaned a number of lessons from Ukraine’s Kharkiv counteroffensive last...

As Ukraine was readying for its counteroffensive, the Russian side was making what the top brass deemed to be necessary preparations. These efforts were laid out in Russian Armed Forces documents that Ukrainian units “captured” on the battlefield – namely, “Recommendations for Combating the Enemy Operating in Tank and Mechanized Columns” and “Prospects for Increasing...

At the time of this writing, Ukrainian forces managed to reach the so-called “Surovikin Line” in a number of places. Ukrainian units finally managed to break through the Russian echeloned defensive lines in the area of Priyutnoye-Staroma-yorskoye-Novodonetske and now threaten to enter the operational zone in the direction of Tokmak. Another breakthrough happened in the...

If at the end of 2022 it was assumed that Ukraine would be the first to attack to gain the initiative on the battlefield, more recent calculations have posited that the Russians will strike first and appear to be gearing up for their next massive offensive, though the Ukrainian Armed Forces stand ready to repel...

While some analysis has covered Ukrainian church life, a Western layman might think that religious persecutions are actively taking place in Ukraine. Moreover, such rhetoric can be heard from Western sources and other media with anti-Ukrainian undertones (YouTube, December 22, 2022). In retrospect, the current actions of the Ukrainian authorities, in which people who were...

When it comes to industrial mobilization in Russia, it is necessary to underline a critical component of the topic: the degree of integration between military and civilian production. During World War I, 80 percent of military products were produced by civilian enterprises in Russia; by 1941, the share of civilian industry in the production of...

Russian President Vladimir Putin, having announced the holding of referendums in the occupied territories of Ukraine, automatically launched the mobilization mechanism in Russia. But what will this mobilization entail? First, it will create a large number of poorly trained replacements to maintain numbers. In the fight for Kyiv in March, Russian troops had a 12-to-1...

Since 2014-2015, Russia has built dozens of ammunition depots hidden in civilian buildings near railway stations in the occupied parts of Ukraine. Russian logistics warehouses are almost always located near railways, since the Russian military has been experiencing a serious shortage of logistics units, especially transport units. When it comes to supplies directly in the...

After the start of the 2022 war, in which the Russian Federation initially deployed about 180,000 soldiers and approximately 120 battalion tactical groups (BTGs) against Ukraine, the Russian military quickly began to experience significant problems with logistics and personnel. The true size and structure of the invading army is not known for certain, but captured...