Putin targets key infrastructure to make people suffer; an offensive is
launched that could cause the Russian Federation to collapse;
death and destruction continue on both sides. This is how the war in Ukraine
will likely go in 2023. It may be a new year, but Russia will not be turning over a new leaf.
From the very beginning days of 2023, it’s clear Vladamir Putin wants to cause
as much pain and destruction as possible in Ukraine. As the winter months continue
and the temperatures plummet in the region, Russia will relentlessly fire missiles and
steer kamikaze drones into the infrastructure of Ukraine. This tactic isn’t being used to
hurt the Ukrainian military, it’s a cowardly act to create enough suffering amongst the
Ukrainian population that more people flee its borders, creating a refugee crisis.
Putin and his advisors know that things are going very badly in Ukraine,
and they are trying to reduce the amount of resistance they will encounter in 2023 by
any means possible. Like with their artillery strikes, Russia has no problem with targeting
civilians or non-military targets. In fact, it seems that as 2023 continues, this will be
a main part of the Russian strategy. Putin’s forces have been destroying heat, power, and
water sources throughout Ukraine to try and cause as much mayhem for regular people as possible.
Even though this is a deplorable tactic, it is not especially surprising that it’s
the one Putin chose to use as he is desperate to create any advantage he can for his forces. Each
day that goes by, Vladimir Putin orders his military to strike more humanitarian targets
along with any infrastructure vital to the survival of Ukrainian citizens. This will
mean that civilians could freeze due to a lack of heat and electricity. And as terrible as this is,
it will likely be a strategy that Russia utilizes throughout 2023.
That being said, the Ukrainian people are resilient. Aid from countries like the
United States, the UK, Canada, and Germany will help the Ukrainians weather the harsh
winter even as Russia engages in terrorist acts. Russian forces, on the other hand, might not be
so lucky. As the winter of 2023 continues, it is not clear whether Russian troops are getting the
supplies they need to make it through the freezing temperatures. It would be ironic, and not out of
line with the way Russia has been conducting its war, if their own troops were demoralized
during the frigid winter months, giving Ukrainian forces the upper hand in the coming offensives.
Make no mistake; both sides are planning to launch offensives at some point in 2023.
Ukraine is in a much better position to do this successfully, but there is little
doubt that Russia is already planning for its next when winter gives way to spring.
As of right now, it does not appear like Russia is in any position to launch an offensive during the
winter months of 2023. Even as the ground freezes and vehicles can easily cross the landscape,
the current Russian strategy seems to be to entrench their troops and hold the line. In
the closing months of 2022, Russia suffered a series of defeats that pushed its forces all
the way back to where they were at the start of the war. This was a huge embarrassment for Putin,
and he knew that his forces would need to take defensive positions if
they were going to be able to recover and advance during the next phase of the war.
Russian troops dug trenches like in World War I, set up barricades along major roads, and blew up
bridges that ran across the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine. For the beginning months
of 2023, Russian forces are likely to stay in this position to fend off any advances made by Ukraine.
If the Ukrainian military does take advantage of the frozen landscape and launch their own
offensive during the winter months, Russian forces will likely be pushed back further towards Crimea.
However, the defensive lines they are already built will make it hard for Ukraine to take
back the southern region of their country for the time being. What we can expect from
Russia is that their troops, tanks, and armored vehicles will take a brief hiatus in early 2023
while missiles and drones continue to rain down on Ukrainian targets. This will be done until more
reinforcements and supplies are sent from Russia to strengthen their forces. As this new year
begins, more and more Russian conscripts are being trained to replenish the ranks of lost men that
Russia sustained in 2022. Until these new soldiers are ready for battle, Russia is stuck where it is.
There are somewhere around 300,000 men in the training pipeline, so we will likely see an
influx of Russian soldiers in Ukraine as 2023 progresses. Once the temperatures start to rise
and spring is in full swing, Russia could launch an offensive to reclaim the territory that it
initially stole from Ukraine last year. This means that Russia will push across the
Dnipro River and try to conquer the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts.
But this time, Ukraine will be ready. Although Russia amassed its forces on the border just
before the invasion last year, it was not clear if Putin was crazy enough to start a
war. Ukraine was preparing for the unthinkable, but NATO and the rest of the west thought Putin
was just posturing. They made the mistake of thinking he would never invade a country with
such close ties to the rest of Europe. In hindsight, we now know that Vladamir Putin
truly is a lunatic who believes he can do whatever he wants without repercussions.
As 2023 continues, Vladimir Putin still likely thinks of himself as the most powerful man in
the world. But Ukraine has shown that Russia isn’t nearly as formidable as they look on
paper. Their military uses outdated tactics, there is incompetence throughout its ranks,
and corruption runs so deep that it gets in the way of basic military operations.
Even when Russia launches its 2023 offensive, there is little guarantee it will be successful.
The obvious goal for Russia is to conquer all of Ukraine and incorporate it back into its
borders. Even with an influx of hundreds of thousands of conscripts, this seems
highly unlikely. But a Russian offensive in 2023 will likely go something like this.
Vladimir Putin orders a bombardment of missiles, artillery, and drone strikes on a scale that has
not been seen in months on Ukrainian targets across the Dnipro River. This will be the
initial sign that the Russian offensive of 2023 has begun. An army of fresh but poorly
trained troops begins their advance north. Throughout the winter, the Russians targeted
Ukrainian infrastructure with their missiles and disrupted power in the region. However, this was
not enough to cause a Ukrainian retreat, and the Russian forces immediately met heavy resistance.
Ukrainian troops knew this day was coming. They stockpiled javelins and
sniper rounds. As Russian soldiers cross the remaining bridges over the Dnipro,
they are picked off by snipers. Cold War-era tanks are incapacitated or
completely obliterated by the anti-tank missiles provided by the United States and Germany. The
Russian offensive slows to a grinding halt. There is nowhere to run. They call in air
support to aid in their retreat, but newly acquired National Advanced Surface-to-Air
Missile Systems sent by the United States blows the Russian planes out of the sky.
At the same time that Russian forces in the south launched their offensive, another force
from Belarus tried to invade from the north. This will be an even bigger failure than the
first time around. When forces were moved across the border from Belarus in the initial invasion,
Ukrainian forces were not prepared to fight a war, and they still ended up defeating their enemy. On
top of that, the initial invasion force consisted of the best men and equipment Russia had to offer,
which is not what they will be fighting with in 2023. Now Ukraine is battle-hardened,
and its troops have experience. Any enemy force that tries to approach Kyiv from Belarus will
be quickly dealt with, and the losses would be catastrophic for Russia and its allies.
Although it is possible that instead of sending another invasion force across the border in
the north, Russia might just amass a large number of troops in Belarus as a distraction
to split Ukrainian forces. Russian planning during the war has left a lot to be desired,
so this may be a bit too complicated for them to figure out. However, a buildup of forces
to their north would at least cause Ukraine to keep an eye on what was happening there.
Regardless of the tactics used by Russia during their offensive, it seems highly unlikely they
will succeed in any of their objectives. It is almost completely impossible that a single
Russian offensive would win them the war, so 2023 will likely not be a year of victory,
especially for Russia. That being said, there is an option that Putin has put
on the table but has not used yet. And if he does, 2023 could be the year the world ends.
If Russia launches an offensive and it becomes a complete failure,
Ukraine will launch a counter-offensive to make Russia pay for its misstep. If done successfully,
Ukraine could push Russian forces all the way back to Crimea. And if it looked to Putin as if Crimea
would be lost, he would not hesitate to use every weapon at his disposal. If Russia loses Crimea,
it could be the end for Putin. He has put everything on the line by invading Ukraine,
and there would be no way to spin a victory if Russia lost control of Crimea.
Therefore, if a Ukrainian offensive or counter-offensive threatens his rule,
Putin may unleash tactical nukes to obliterate their forces. This would
prompt a response from NATO. And Putin being Putin, things could escalate even further if
he decides to launch strategic nukes. This would lead to World War III and the end of
the world as we know it. This scenario is very unlikely to happen in 2023, but most nations
around the world thought it was unlikely that Putin would invade Ukraine, yet here we are.
If Ukraine is the first to strike in 2023, it will likely do so when the ground is completely
frozen in the middle of winter. Russian forces have focused their defenses in the western
portion of the Kherson Oblast. However, their eastern flank is somewhat exposed,
with vast amounts of land between one defensive position and the next. If a
Ukrainian offensive was launched across the Dnipro and into the northeastern section of
the Zaporizhia Oblast, they could encircle Russian forces and cause massive casualties.
As it stands now, the early Russian defenses of 2023 are not very good. Ukraine may be
planning to take advantage of this and gain a foothold on the southern bank of the Dnipro,
which would then allow them to push further south towards Crimea. Ukraine also might try
to drive Russian forces out of the Donbas region from the north. Clearing Russia out
of their country entirely is their main goal, but 2023 will most likely consist
of a series of offensives by Ukraine to slowly take back their territory.
Even though the Ukrainian military has shown time and time again that they can outmaneuver
and defeat Russian forces, they will still need to be strategic as Russia still has them
outnumbered. Successful Ukrainian offensives will almost certainly occur during 2023,
but a decisive victory and the removal of Russian troops from their borders
might not come until later in the year, if at all.
The only way that Ukraine will succeed in launching an offensive is if they get the
weapons and supplies they need from the west. At the beginning of the war, Russia banked on the
Ukrainian people basically giving up without a fight. Putin honestly thought this would
happen due to bad intel but also because he is a psychopath who thinks no one would have the gall
to stand up to him. When his initial invasion failed to take Kyiv and quickly end the war,
Putin believed that if he could cause enough damage and take out Ukraine’s infrastructure,
eventually, western aid would dry up, and his forces would be able to deal
with what was left of the Ukrainian military. This has not happened yet.
What is happening is that western nations are being slow to provide Ukraine with the weapons
and supplies they need to win the war. Ukraine has beaten the odds in every way possible, and
all they are asking for is a little more help from the west to finish the job. Countries in NATO,
like the United States, Germany, France, and the U.K., are all still sending aid; it just
isn’t happening quickly enough. This is one of the things that Russia will try to exploit in 2023.
If Putin can strengthen his troop numbers by training hundreds of thousands of conscripts,
along with supplying them with the weapons they need before Ukraine gets resources from the west,
Russia may be able to overpower the Ukrainian military. This is exactly what Putin is now
hoping for as 2023 gives way to the next phase of the war. By disrupting the infrastructure
of Ukraine and finding ways to prevent supplies from reaching the front lines,
Russia can buy time until it can replenish its forces.
So, 2023 is becoming a race against time. Can Russia cause enough damage to make it
until Spring, when they can launch their own offensive? Or will Ukraine secure the
supplies they need to strike in the coming months? Only time will tell.
It’s interesting to note that Russia believed the west would not help Ukraine at the beginning of
the war. And as the war became drawn out, Putin assumed that western nations would lose interest
in what was happening in Ukraine, which there has been precedence for in the past when he
annexed Crimea in 2014. Surprisingly, western countries have continually backed Ukraine,
with the United States being one of its biggest suppliers of weapons and resources.
The US is a key player here because other nations are looking to see how far the superpower is
willing to go to stand up to Russia. There is a delicate balancing act that is happening with the
aid being given to Ukraine. Western nations have refused to send long-range missiles for
fear that they could escalate things further if launched into Russia. This is a valid concern,
but Ukraine has made it clear that even though long-range missiles would make a
huge difference to their war effort, they are not required for a victory.
What is required are anti-tank weapons and surface-to-air missiles. Putin’s war plan
for 2023 hinges on these continuing to be weak points in the Ukrainian military. If Russia can
continuously bomb, launch missiles, and use kamikaze drones to disrupt infrastructure as
well as target military installations, Ukraine could be in big trouble. The main thing is that
even though many nations have put sanctions on Russia to cripple its economy—which has
been successful—Putin still has the resources and manpower he needs to make more weapons.
And even though Russia’s economy has nosedived into the ground,
it is still selling massive amounts of oil and natural gas to China, India,
and the European Union. This means there is still cash flowing into the country,
which is pretty much all controlled by Putin. There are also foreign companies and governments
that are willing to sell Russia weapons, similar to how the west is supplying Ukraine.
So, even though Russia is running low on things like missiles, it can still buy or make more. And
it can probably do this much faster than western countries are resupplying the Ukrainian military.
2023 will be a race for Russia to rearm its troops before Ukraine can do the same. In the coming
months, whoever launches an offensive first will set the tone for the rest of the year. If Ukraine
is able to break through Russian defenses and head toward Crimea, the rest of the year will likely
be a series of staggering defeats for Russia. However, if Russian forces can make it through
the winter and have their numbers replenished by all of the newly trained conscripts,
they might have the numbers to take back some of the territory lost as 2022 came to an end.
The saddest part of all this is that there is little to no talk of peace in 2023. Putin won’t
come to the negotiating table, and Ukraine has made it clear they will agree to nothing less
than Russia surrendering all of the territory it stole from them, including Crimea. Neither side
is going to agree to the other’s terms, so peace talks will not be something to expect in 2023.
However, if things continue to go poorly for Putin, it might cause something to
happen within Russia that no one thought possible. Vladimir Putin has put numerous
countermeasures in place to ensure no one can take his power. He has an internal military
force whose sole job is to squash uprisings and protests. Putin has also separated power in the
government to ensure no one group can gain enough support to start a coup. Nevertheless,
the Russian people are suffering, citizens are being conscripted for a war they are losing faith
in, and huge numbers of people are fleeing the country to escape the oppressive Russian regime.
2023 might be the year that the Russian people have had enough and that Putin’s power becomes
weak enough for them to do something about it. There is pain and suffering within the country,
and with every military defeat in Ukraine, Putin has to spin a new narrative to make
it look like everything is going according to plan. Even with State-controlled media,
this is becoming harder and hard to do. At some point, things will become so bad
that there will be no way for Putin to lie about the reality of the situation.
As it stands now, Ukraine seems to be in a better position militarily than Russia is in 2023. We
can expect Putin to continue his war as he is in too deep to do anything else. He can’t pull out
of Ukraine without looking weak and losing the faith of the Russian people. Therefore,
2023 will be about digging in and holding the line for Russia while missiles and drones are
used to disrupt the infrastructure of Ukraine. If this continues long enough,
and Russia succeeds in disrupting power, heat, and water to Ukrainian citizens, they will have
to flee their homes. 2023 could end up with one of the largest refugee crises in recent years.
However, if Ukraine is able to launch a successful offensive,
take back the southern regions of their country, and oust Russian forces from Crimea, 2023 could
very well be the year that Vladamir Putin loses power. That being said, most military analysts
agree that 2023 will likely be similar to what we saw in 2022. Soldiers and civilians will die,
the destruction of towns and cities will continue, and the Ukrainian people will continue to bravely
fight an enemy that is much larger than they are. Let’s just all hope that Vladamir Putin doesn’t
decide to take drastic actions that lead to 2023 being the year Russia starts World War III.
Now watch “This is How the Russian War in Ukraine Ends.” Or check out “AWOL
Russian Soldiers are Destroying Putin's War in Ukraine Plans.”