LONDON, March 28. /TASS/. Russia has seized the initiative in the special military operation zone because the Ukrainian armed forces are facing manpower and ammunition shortages, the Financial Times writes.

According to military experts and Ukrainian soldiers, the prolonged defense of Artyomovsk (called Bakhmut in Ukraine) "sapped critical resources ahead of its summer 2023 counteroffensive, which was unsuccessful." "That failure, along with severe shortages of ammunition and manpower and the lack of layered defensive lines, has now allowed Moscow’s army to seize the initiative," the paper points out.

The Financial Times claims that "Russian units are not sweeping across the battlefield as they did in February 2022 but they are making small and steady gains in southern and eastern Ukraine."

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced on March 20 that Ukraine had lost 71,000 troops and 11,000 pieces of equipment since the beginning of the year, almost three times more than in the same period of 2023.