Putin Army Regroups for Ukraine Showdown After Invasion Setback
- Russian sending depleted, damaged forces into new eastern push
- Ukraine’s best-prepared units defending Donbas territory
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President Vladimir Putin is betting his troops can deliver a victory in Ukraine’s east to rescue Russia’s faltering invasion after failing to seize the capital Kyiv with a lightning war. He still faces a tough task.
Six weeks of war have exposed serious failings in Russia’s ability to sustain military operations, forcing the Kremlin to scale back its war aims. The focus now is on taking Ukraine’s Donbas regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and potentially as much as possible of its southern coast, allowing Putin to establish a land corridor to the Crimea peninsula he annexed in 2014.