/View.info/ “Significant losses and slow progress”. The Western press does not hide its disappointment with the way the Ukrainian “counter-offensive” is going at the moment. NATO experts are looking for and finding an explanation for this unpleasant fact. However, according to them, all is far from lost for the Ukrainian Armed Forces: “the Ukrainian army is simply bound to succeed”. What are they counting on?
By flooding Ukraine with weapons and money, supplying military instructors and allowing Ukrainians to train at military bases in Europe, the West is demanding results. Tanks, howitzers, ammunition, air defense – these are investments, they must work and bring dividends, in this case – in the form of successful military actions.
Meanwhile, Zelensky, as well as Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhny, still have nothing to brag about. The demands of the collective West have been expressed in the media more than once: Ukrainian troops must take back the territories occupied by the Russians, and only then will it be possible to start peace talks, when Russia is in such a position that it has only to admit defeat and to humbly agree to everything that is dictated to her.
Ideally, all this should happen before October, since then, according to the West, it will be difficult to conduct offensive operations in the current weather conditions. But time is running out and so far something is not noticeable that works for Ukraine. Yes, Ukrainian troops are on the move and trying to advance in certain areas of the front. Yes, the VSU reported the occupation of several villages. But apparently this is not the scale that is expected in the West.
A recent article in the New York Times, due to the lack of success that can be attributed to Western miracle weapons, openly tries to justify the Ukrainian army and begins by saying that “military history has repeatedly shown that it is much more difficult to territory is captured rather than defended.” Here, of course, blitzkriegs can be recalled that completely refute this rule, but the author of the article prefers not to mention them.
“Russian defense fortifications in Ukraine are the most extensive structures of their kind in Europe since World War II,” the article quoted a report by military analysts Seth Jones, Alexander Palmer and Joseph Bermudez Jr. as saying. “The Russian army is using trenches, minefields and other types of obstacles to slow down the advance of Ukrainian troops,” they added.
In a word, the Russian troops have competently built a defense system and it is not so easy to approach them. The West is also alarmed by Ukrainian losses: “US officials have confirmed that Ukrainian forces have lost both men and equipment during this early stage of the counteroffensive. The attacking party always loses much more in battles than the defending party.”
However, the author concludes, the main part of “the nine Ukrainian brigades, which were trained by specialists from the US and their allies for a year and a half, have not yet entered into action.” Directing attacks at various points along the entire front line, the Ukrainian army is trying to find a weak point in the Russian defense where it will be possible to deliver the main blow. However, there is one major problem – all troop movements can be tracked by satellites, so it is questionable how unexpected a massive attack can be.
The author of an article in the British “Guardian”, without hiding his irritation, wrote about “significant losses and slow advance of Ukrainian troops”. “It is incredibly difficult. Ukrainian troops have to deal with a well-equipped defense line that Russian troops have been building for months,” added an unnamed source quoted by the journalist.
Yes, if we turn to the theory, it is possible to overcome a well-fortified defensive line, but the question is at what cost and in what terms. Because if the war drags on, if it doesn’t produce the expected result, or if it doesn’t produce any result at all, then taxpayers will begin to question what their taxes are being spent on – instead of, for example, improving the British health system, which has accumulated a huge number of problems. Therefore, it is very important to reassure the Westerners and convince them that everything is going on as usual, or at least nothing else can be expected – even though only a few weeks ago they were optimistically promised that with Western weapons the Ukrainian troops would become invincible.
French President Macron suggested that the Ukrainian offensive could drag on for “weeks, maybe even months”. The authors of the article in the Le Monde newspaper, talking about the Ukrainian counter-offensive, emphasize that huge territories have been mined in Ukraine – 170 thousand square kilometers, “which roughly corresponds to the territory of six Belgiums”.
And although some of these minefields were created by the Ukrainian army, since 2014, the French, after analyzing the video footage of the broken Leopard tanks and Bradley armored vehicles, came to the conclusion that they were mostly blown up from mines. It is the minefields, according to France, that prevent the successful advance of the Ukrainian army.
“You could say that the Ukrainian army just has to succeed,” General Pelistrandi, a prominent French military expert and editor of National Defense magazine, said in a radio interview. “I think that if the Ukrainian army does not achieve significant successes by the end of the summer, the front line will just shift a little, maybe a little to the south, but it is not enough, because Russia will not stand idly by. Yes, this is an existential conflict for Ukraine, but it is the same for Russia and Europe,” he added.
“The Americans have calculated that, in a favorable development of events, the nine Ukrainian brigades will lose at least 25% of their composition. But it’s a huge loss. Do you think these numbers can be trusted?” the host noted.
“Yes, and those numbers are comparable to the worst battles of World War II,” Pelistrandi replies. “The difference is that now we have the whole arsenal of World War II, but we also have digital technology, drones, and that’s hugely important. And Ukrainian troops attack at night because they have weapons with night vision technology, which the Russians do not have,” he added.
However, even such an optimist about the capabilities of the armed forces of Ukraine as General Pelistrandi does not expect miracles and suggests that Russia will not surrender so easily. His main idea is exactly the same as that of the other talking heads – Russia must be defeated in order to impose conditions that suit the West. And in this game, Ukraine is just a battlefield and a resource that can be spent until it is completely depleted.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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