The US estimates that Russia has lost 15-20% of its military power in Ukraine

Photo: RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP / Getty Images

The number of tactical units in the Russian border town of Belg orod, at 100 kilometers north of Kharkov, would have increased from 30 a 40, a senior Defense Department official reported on Friday.

This implies that to the east of the country they have moved 15,000 more Russian soldiers in recent days, according to ABC News. “We believe that area will serve as a resupply area for Russian troops. We have seen indications that some units are moving towards Belgorod”, he confessed.

Furthermore, the Defense official maintained that Russia is concentrating its energy and effort on the south and east of the country. “It is difficult to say exactly where each of these (soldiers) are, but we have seen them increase,” he said.

As that Russian troops are withdrawing from some Ukrainian cities, some of the Russian Battalion Tactical Groups (or BTG, with approximately 800-1000 soldiers each) who have withdrawn across the borders of Belarus The US and Russia have essentially been “eradicated” from the fighting in Ukraine. according to the senior defense official.

“There is simply nothing left of the BTG except a handful of troops and maybe a small number of vehicles,” the official said.

In terms of total losses, counting troops, tanks, planes, and missile inventory, Russia has lost between the 15 and the 20 % of combat power it originally had against Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion, according to the official.

On the other hand, he assured that the “struggle” during the last eight years in the Donbas region has served for both Armies to “be familiar” with the terrain, the of population and lines of communication, so he expects “a knife fight”. “This could be very bloody and very ugly”, has clarified.

The Donbas is becoming the main theater of battle in the country after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s failed attempt to take the Ukrainian capital of kyiv.

“The Russians and the Ukrainians have focused on Donbas for eight years, and for eight years the Ukrainians have been able to block Russia’s biggest targets in Donbas,” the Pentagon official said. “But the fight has been bloody, it has been hard. And it has been quite constant for years”.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby assured last week that there were reports predicting that tens of thousands of reservists were being mobilized to reinforce Russian units on the Donbas border after the losses of its troops in northern Ukraine.

In addition, the Ukrainian Armed Forces assured on Tuesday that Russia “would be regrouping troops” and “concentrating their efforts” on preparations for a military offensive in the east of the country, referring to the Donbas region, where the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk are located.