Expert: Asking for a ceasefire was a clear sign of Russia's weakness

Russian President Vladimir Putin's request for a ceasefire during May 9 celebrations was a major change and sign of weakness, security expert Rainer Saks believes.
Russia initiated a ceasefire from May 9 to 11 with Ukraine, although both sides claim it has already been broken.
Saks said many have compared the scale of the Victory Day events with previous years, but the most significant change was the request for a pause in the fighting.
"But they were not only afraid of drone attacks, but Ukrainian cyberattacks are also quite powerful at decisive moments. But the fact that they moved at the strategic level to secure peace is still a significant change. Russia has not organized things this way before. An obvious sign of weakness," he said on Sunday's "Ukraina stuudio".
Exactly what Russia and Ukraine agreed on this time is not known, but it is clear that the ceasefire activity does not cover the front line, Saks noted.
"This time there is no silence on the front. Bombing with glide bombs by tactical aviation and long-range drone attacks have stopped. There was no qualitative change on the fronts; things continued as on previous days. There were slightly fewer attacks, some drop in intensity, but broadly speaking military activity on the front line continues," he said.
At the same time, the previously agreed exchange of prisoners of war has still not taken place. The messages have been mixed, Saks noted: Ukraine has spoken of exchanging 1,000 prisoners, while Russia has named the figure as 500.
"It was clear that the Russian president did not like exchanges taking place in such large quantities, and he later blocked exchanges of that scale from taking place and reduced them to around 200 people. Right now, Russia is trying to show that it has some kind of power, that it dictates to Ukraine, so that the impression is not left that somehow the opposite is true," Saks said.
Russia running short of air defense systems
Ukraine is now trying to take advantage of the fact that Russia is beginning to run short of air defense resources, Saks said.
"And it is also short of ammunition, as well as launch systems. The reason is that over the past year, Ukraine has very systematically struck Russian air defense systems with its attack drones," he added.
Statistics show that Russia uses an average of 200 attack drones per day, a large portion of them Shaheds. The number of drones can rise to 400 or 500, Saks said.
In Ukraine's case, it can also be seen that recently their daily number of attack drones has risen to 200, he added.
--
Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!
Editor: Helen Wright, Marko Tooming, Epp Ehand
Source: Ukraina stuudio









