“It reinforces the acknowledgement that Ukraine has a military disadvantage here,” Dan Caldwell, who recently served as senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, told Newsweek.
“The Russians currently have the upper hand on the battlefield and, while for good reasons there may be an unwillingness to acknowledge that out loud directly, it also reinforces the fact that there really aren’t any good options to fundamentally change that,” he added. “From what I saw previously, and from what I’m seeing now in open-source, is that what has been building up for the Ukrainians is fundamentally a manpower issue.”
Caldwell noted that Ukrainians also suffered from “other disadvantages around certain supplies or certain munitions” including “the technological side,” where Russia’s increased use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, have also contributed to recent gains.
“But if you don’t have enough infantry to hold a line, to occupy a city, to maintain a line of communication or a supply line,” he said, “then you are going to be pushed out of these positions eventually by a force that actually has manpower, has infantry, has forces that can go and hold and seize terrain.”
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