Russian troops in Ukraine not capable of offensive operations - British intelligence

According to Ukrinform, the UK Ministry of Defense said this in its latest intelligence update published on Twitter.

"Russia has likely augmented some of its units west of the Dnipro River with mobilized reservists. However, this is from an extremely low level of manning," the agency said.

It said that in September 2022, there was a huge lack of personnel for combat units of the Russian army in the Kherson region. In particular, some companies consisted of six to eight people. Given that additional staffing took place at the expense of poorly trained and equipped soldiers, the leadership of the Russian army decided to concentrate their efforts on the defense of occupied positions.

"In the last six weeks, there has been a clear move from Russian ground forces to transition to a long-term, defensive posture on most areas of the front line in Ukraine. This is likely due to a more realistic assessment that the severely undermanned, poorly trained force in Ukraine is currently only capable of defensive operations," the ministry said.

It added that even if Russia succeeds in consolidating long-term defensive lines in Ukraine, its operational design will remain vulnerable.

"To regain the initiative, it will need to regenerate higher quality, mobile forces which are capable of dynamically countering Ukrainian breakthroughs and conducting their own large-scale offensive operations," the ministry said.

British intelligence earlier said Russia was unlikely to be able to form combat-ready units in Belarus.