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Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, said Russia was continuing to bolster its offensive capacity and bring in troops to front-line positions while decreasing its rate of fire in certain areas to save ammunition for the coming advance.
“We can see that more and more reserves are being brought in our direction, we’re observing more military equipment that is being partly hidden in forested areas or dug in,” Mr. Haidai said in a TV interview on Monday.
Russia has in recent months been training thousands of mobilized troops in Belarus and parts of western Russia in preparation for their deployment to Ukraine. Mr. Haidai said that signs indicate that this training is coming to an end and that Moscow has allocated two weeks for these new service members to enter Russian-held parts of Ukraine and take up positions.
“Starting from February 15 we can expect [a major offensive] at any time,” he said.
Ukraine has been steeling itself for a big Russian offensive for weeks. The lines of control in the east and south of the country had been largely static for months until Russia began intensifying attacks last month and pushed to surround the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region and oust Ukrainian forces from the Luhansk region to the north.
“We are expecting this push. We are ready,” Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said in a press conference on Sunday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged the threat to the Donetsk region.
“Particular attention is paid to Bakhmut. To our defense. To the occupier’s attempts to surround the city and break the defense there,” he said in his nightly address Monday. “We are countering them.”
The warnings come as part of Ukraine’s defense establishment finds itself in turmoil. Revelations of corruption in the Defense Ministry have placed Mr. Reznikov in the crosshairs of a clampdown on graft that accelerated with the firing of several top officials last month.
An investigation by Ukrainian media last month revealed that the Defense Ministry had paid two to three times above supermarket prices to purchase food for troops. Ukraine’s SBU security service said this week that the embezzlement scheme had siphoned off public funds and cost the Defense Ministry $3.2 million, at a time when soldiers on the front line are facing a Russian army bolstered by hundreds of thousands of mobilized soldiers.
Mr. Reznikov hasn’t been personally implicated in the scandal, but the head of Mr. Zelensky’s Servant of the People political party, Davyd Arakhamia, on Sunday said the defense minister would be reassigned to a new post in government. The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, would replace him, Mr. Arakhamia said.
Mr. Arakhamia said the decision, which could be put to a parliament vote this week, was motivated by a need to staff government agencies related to the military not with career politicians but with people possessing backgrounds in security and defense.
“The enemy is preparing to advance,” Mr. Arakhamia said in a Telegram post. “We are preparing to defend ourselves.”
Several lawmakers immediately questioned the move, citing Ukrainian laws mandating that the defense minister be a civilian. Analysts said both Mr. Reznikov and Mr. Budanov, a celebrated military official who has been praised for his role throughout the war, enjoy good relations with the president and are reluctant to leave their posts.
“The (government) wanted to lower political tensions after the scandal,” Volodymyr Fesenko, a Kyiv-based political analyst at the Penta think tank, said of the announcement about Mr. Reznikov’s removal. “They simply didn’t coordinate the decision either with Budanov or Reznikov, and now have to convince them to side with it.”
Mr. Fesenko said that it is unlikely a final judgment on Mr. Reznikov’s fate will be made this week and that the decision to reassign the men could be reversed.
Mr. Reznikov’s demotion would make him the highest-ranking official to be removed from his post since the war began last February. The defense minister has played a key role in building partnerships with Western counterparts and lobbying for military aid for Ukraine’s defense effort. He has also enjoyed a close relationship with Lloyd Austin, his U.S. counterpart.
Mr. Reznikov said in an interview with Ukrainian media on Sunday that he bore “reputational responsibility” for the embezzlement scandal. In a press conference the same day, he said he would step down if Mr. Zelensky decides he should.
“No one remains in office forever, no one,” he said. “The decision as to whether I am the defense minister or not will be made by one person.”
Mr. Zelensky last month removed close to a dozen top officials in a bid to contain a series of corruption scandals and shore up Western confidence in his administration at a critical moment in the war. “We will continue to take appropriate steps,” he said at the time.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military intelligence on Monday said Russia was preparing to purchase a fresh batch of Shahed-136 suicide drones from Iran after launching more than 660 into Ukraine since October. Moscow and Tehran are strengthening their military cooperation and moving ahead with plans to build a new factory in Russia that could make at least 6,000 of the drones for the war in Ukraine, officials from a country aligned with the U.S. said on Sunday.
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