Ukraine braces for renewed Russian offensive
Kiv is bracing for a new Russian offensive. Officials are warning that new waves of attacks could be launched by Russia for symbolic reasons around February 24th, marking one year since the initial invasion. Moscow still calls the ongoing war a, quote, special military operation. So James Waterhouse is from our partners at the BBC. He's in Kiv with the very latest forest. James, thanks for joining us. What are officials in Ukraine saying about the likely offensive in the coming weeks? Well they're extremely worried.
Kiv is anticipating a major Russian assault from either the east or the south or both. And those symbolic goals you mentioned are around the complete occupation of the eastern Donbas region, as well as the widening of this sizeable land corridor. It already occupies spanning from Crimea all the way up to those eastern territories. And what Kiv is thinking, it thinks Russia is trying to get ahead of all of those Western tanks which have been promised for Ukraine. They won't receive them immediately. They will all take training. They all require sizeable resources.
And so the concern here is that Russia is going to look to get ahead of that and seize what it can. Because if Vladimir Putin achieves those goals, then that is the first political off-ramp for him. That is the first chance he will have to say to his critics back in Russia as well as his population, look, I've achieved what I have set out to do. So Ukraine is desperate for that not to happen. But at the moment it is the Ukrainian forces which are weathering relentless Russian attacks. And it is the Russians which are making small but incredibly costly and hard fought gains. They have mobilized hundreds of thousands of men once more.
They have increased their production of weapons and ammunition. So it is a very worrying time for Kiv. And you can really sense that. Just very quickly, you know, I know over the past few weeks you have heard about President Zelensky removing people from within the government or moving them around. There is a rumor about the defense minister, just a rumor. Can you talk about the importance of not just rooting out corruption within the Ukrainian government but making sure that he gives the appearance that he is working hard to root out corruption for the rest of the world? Yeah. I mean, for President Zelensky it is vital he appears squeaky clean to his Western allies who are pumping billions of dollars of military, financial and humanitarian aid into Ukraine.
He has overseen more than a dozen resignations and sackings. And the way we were told a few days ago by his parliamentary party that Alexei Resnikov, the country's defense minister, would be replaced. Twenty-four hours later, Mr. Resnikov has said that he wouldn't accept his new posting of minister for strategic industry. And the party said, actually, there's going to be no changes this week. So after a period where he's trying to appear decisive, the last few days have been anything but. Interesting.
Thank you very much.
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