Russia is preparing an escalation which requires more troops
I suspect you are correct even as I pray this is not true.
What a mess and it increases the possibility of escalation beyond Ukraine.
Putin can not survive a defeat nor can he achieve victory with his present forces.
This is a very dangerous situation for Putin who controls the most nuclear weapons and the West seems eager to play “nuclear chicken” with a desperate corruptocrat who does not appear well.
The human cost of this is sickening and it’s a Pyrrhic victory at best.
″(Russian President) Putin’s souring relationship with the military command and the Russian (MoD) may explain in part the Kremlin’s increasing focus on recruiting ill-prepared volunteers into ad-hoc irregular units rather than attempting to draw them into reserve or replacement pools for regular Russian combat units,” the ISW said.
Part of this, it said, is due to Putin “bypassing the Russian higher military command and Ministry of Defense (MoD) leadership throughout the summer and especially following the defeat around #Kharkiv Oblast.
Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War said the desire to hold a rapid referendum “suggests that Ukraine’s ongoing northern counter-offensive is panicking proxy forces and some Kremlin decision-makers.”
The ISW’s analysts said referenda would be “incoherent” as “Russian forces do not control all of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.”
“Partial annexation at this stage would ... place the Kremlin in the strange position of demanding that Ukrainian forces un-occupy ‘Russian’ territory, and the humiliating position of being unable to enforce that demand. It remains very unclear that Russian President Vladimir Putin would be willing to place himself in such a bind for the dubious benefit of making it easier to threaten NATO or Ukraine with escalation he remains highly unlikely to conduct at this stage,” they said.
— Holly Ellyatt