Russian President Vladimir Putin has committed "around 75%" of his military forces to the unprovoked attack on Ukraine, a senior U.S. defense official said Wednesday.
The official said that the 75% figure mostly referred to "battalion tactical groups [BTG], which is the units that he has primarily relied upon."
Each Russian BTG includes a self-contained combined arms force with tanks, infantry, artillery, and air defense. It also has its own logistics, maintenance, and support facilities.
Writing for the Center for European Policy Analysis think tank on Tuesday, former U.S. Army Europe commander Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges wrote that "at the height of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we were about 29% committed. And it was difficult to sustain that."
While most of their military offensives in Ukraine continue to be stalled amid fierce resistance, Russian forces continues to fire dozens of missiles and rockets at Ukrainian civilian and military targets daily, the senior defense official said at a Wednesday briefing in Brussels.
"The Russians still have, we would assess, the vast majority of their combat power available to them inside Ukraine," the senior official said.
"Of the force that they assembled over the fall and have committed now to Ukraine, of that power, of that capability, they still have the vast majority of it. So it's difficult to say ... if anybody tried to predict I think that would be a bit of a fool's errand ... they still have an awful lot of capability left to them."
The official said the Pentagon has seen the Russians "deliberate and discuss the possibility of resupply to include replacement troops."
"We haven't seen any indications that anything is moving right now outside of what they have already in Ukraine," the official said. "But we know they said that they are suffering losses everyday: losses of people, losses of equipment, losses of aircraft.
"And so, it certainly stands to reason that they would want to be exploring options to replenish those losses. Again, just haven't seen an indication."
Hodges wrote that Russian generals were “running out of time, ammunition, and manpower."
"There is no suggestion that the Russians have big units lurking in the woods somewhere," he wrote. "It's apparent that the notional 900,000 strength of the Russian military is a hollow number.
"Russia will call up another 130,000 conscripts on April 1," he added, but while "the Ukrainian diaspora is flocking home to help the fight; Russians are not coming back home — and indeed, many are leaving to avoid Putin's fight."
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