Russian attempts to conquer Ukraine could soon reach a stalemate as heavy casualties and equipment destruction hit unprepared Russian troops hard, who have failed to achieve any of their initial goals, writes the Washington Post, citing Western officials and military experts..

Front lines barely changed in over a week. Russians are being killed and wounded at a rate of about 1,000 a day, according to Western intelligence estimates.. And if you look at Ukrainian data, this figure will be even higher..

A stream of videos showing burnt tanks and abandoned columns is continuously pouring from Ukrainian pages on social networks.. Footage of dead invaders, surrendered Russians, and hungry Russian soldiers stealing chickens from local farmers is just as widespread.. There are also more and more photos of the mutilated bodies of Ukrainian civilians who died due to rocket and artillery attacks..

The brutality of Russian strikes will intensify as the offensive slows down. Russia is trying to compensate for the failures on the battlefield with bloody civilian bombing. Ordinary Ukrainians in cities that have completely or partially surrounded Russian troops are paying a heavy price for a war that did not go according to plan from the first hours..

“But due to the lack of meaningful progress on the ground and the scale of casualties, the Russian military campaign may soon become unsustainable.. Troops unable to advance due to lack of sufficient manpower, supplies and ammunition, analysts and officials say. The next two weeks will be critical in deciding the outcome of the entire war..

If Russia cannot quickly improve its lines of support, overturn reinforcements, and raise zero morale of its troops on the ground, it will not be able to achieve its goal..

“I don’t think Ukrainian forces can push Russian forces out of Ukraine. But I also don’t think Russian forces are capable of capturing even more in Ukraine,” said former US Marine and Foreign Policy Research Institute senior fellow Rob Lee..

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) estimates, released on Sunday, went even further..

“Ukrainian forces defeated the initial Russian campaign in this war,” the institute’s experts emphasized, adding that the conflict had already reached a “dead end”.

The Washington Post writes that events on the battlefield can still develop according to different scenarios.. For example, if Russia can still capture the encircled and devastated Mariupol, it can thus free up additional forces for offensives elsewhere.. But in their article, retired US General Ben Hodges and European military researcher Julian Lindley-French wrote that the Russian army is nearing what military strategists call the " This means that they have reached the limit of their ability to wage war..

“The Russian war of conquest in Ukraine is now entering a critical phase. The conflict is culminating in Russian offensive capabilities and Ukrainian defense capabilities,” they wrote..

Hodges and Lindley-French called on the US and allies to provide military assistance to Ukraine so that its army can take advantage of this "

“I am convinced that Russia does not have the time, manpower or ammunition to continue its actions,” said Hodges, who is now collaborating with the Center for European Political Analysis.. He explained that the West continues to increase military assistance to Ukraine, thanks to which the army can maintain the intensity of its resistance.. The Russian army still has an advantage in terms of numbers and equipment compared to the more lightly armed Ukrainian army.. However, according to Lindley-French, in order to turn the situation in its favor, Moscow will have to look for additional personnel and supply lines..

“Now they can’t do that, but they can fix everything by changing tactics and pulling in reinforcements,” he said..

US officials refuse to make public forecasts on the course of the war. However, they show clear signs that the Russians are having a hard time maintaining existing forces.. They fail to find reinforcements and eliminate logistical problems. Calls for China to provide military assistance, so far fruitless attempts to recruit mercenaries in Syria, and talk of troop deployments from other parts of the Russian Federation and Georgian South Ossetia have so far produced no clear signs that new troops are on their way to Ukraine..

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He added that Russian problems with logistics have been persisting for three weeks.. And this is a rather unusual situation.. From the first hours of the war, it was obvious that the key tasks of Russia were to capture Kharkov, connect the Donbass with Odessa by a corridor along the sea coast, and most importantly, capture Kyiv during a lightning offensive from the north.. But it's been more than three weeks. And the Russian troops achieved absolutely none of this.. They were not even able to completely surround Kharkov, despite its extreme proximity to the Russian border.. An attempt to attack in Odessa was stopped near Nikolaev. And efforts to connect Crimea with Donbass are shattered by an increasingly bloody siege of Mariupol. Russia has been able to make some progress in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which have been partly occupied by Russian forces since 2014.. But the offensive on this front did not reach its initial ambitions..

The publication writes that the Ukrainian forces also suffered losses, although no one has yet spoken publicly about the exact numbers.. The longer the war drags on, the more dangerous it will become for the Ukrainian army.. According to Jack Wetling, an expert at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, this will increase the chances that Russia will be able to correct its initial mistakes.. However, he noted that the Ukrainian fighters remain very motivated while the morale of Russian soldiers is constantly deteriorating.. Russian soldiers continue to surrender, abandon their vehicles and show a lack of initiative even in places they control.

As Russia's offensive capability deteriorates, the risk of increased civilian casualties increases.. The stalemate, according to WP experts, will be " Stockpiles of precision-guided missiles in Russia are running out, US officials say. This means that Moscow will increasingly use so-called " Analysts and officials say Ukraine is unlikely to have the strength to push the Russian army out of the places it has already entered.. However, the difficulties faced by the Russian military allow the Ukrainian army to stop the enemy from moving on.. This means that there will be pressure that could force Russia to agree to a diplomatic solution..

No one thinks about how quickly the Russians will be able to take over Ukraine..

The main question of the war now is: “Will Ukraine be able to force Russia to stop on the spot And, according to an unnamed Western official, so far “Ukrainians are quite successful at this”.

Wetling thinks next two weeks 'will be quite decisive'. He is convinced that the war will not end in this time. And the signals from Moscow are that it will try to raise rates, not the other way around.. So the war could get even bloodier for the Ukrainians, despite the slow Russian advance..