Decisive battle over Ukrainian south looms
The Russians failed to seize Bakhmut, despite the huge efforts they devoted to taking the town. The goal of Ukrainian forces was to exhaust the Russians as much as possible before the spring counter-offensive started. Sitting in defense in Bakhmut was a good position for the Ukrainian Army to cause the maximum possible loss to the invaders. Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, claims that Russians lost seven soldiers killed for each fallen Ukrainian soldier. By the time of this report, Russians had lost more than 170,000 killed in action, according to the General Staff of Ukraine.
Russia’s big winter offensive has apparently choked. And now it’s Ukraine’s turn to move. While the Kremlin was pushing to continue its so-called "meat assaults," the General Staff of the Ukrainian Army was building reserves, and accumulating offensive weapons and equipment. We do not know when and how the counter-offensive will start, but it’s already a kind of common knowledge that the decisive hit will take place by June. We keep our fingers crossed, hoping the strike will be strong enough to throw the aggressors out of the south of Ukraine.
The IMF announced a staff-level agreement on a new Extended Fund Facility (EFF) Arrangement, worth $15.6 billion for Ukraine. The IMF talks about a four-year program in two stages. The first stage covers the period until the end of the war, with the main goal of maintaining stability. The second stage should start in the post-war period, and should include more expansive reforms. The program is positive news, but the funding envisaged for the program is more supplementary to the main needs of Ukraine, and it’s very unlikely that the IMF program will be especially important for the authorities, who feel that Western partners do not want to be too pushy with reforms on these days.
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