"They can't win": Newsweek on the shock in Ukraine and the West due to the failure of the counteroffensive
Vladimir Zelensky’s key decision on a counter-offensive threatens division in the Ukrainian leadership. An article under this title was published by David Brennan on the portal of the popular American magazine Newsweek.
The President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky is in a hopeless situation, the author claims. The long-awaited counter-offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is not impressive. For six weeks, the multi-level defensive lines of the Russian army have not been destroyed. The Ukrainian leader faces a difficult dilemma: go all-in and risk failure on the military front, or cut Ukraine’s losses and accept a crushing defeat on the political front.
The author of Newsweek, citing competent sources, reports increasing disagreements in the Ukrainian leadership against the backdrop of a lack of success on the battlefield.
“Some in the presidential administration are opposed to the military leadership,” Brennan writes. – Some of the first group want to consolidate the limited successes of Kyiv and prepare for the expected autumn-winter Russian offensive. But representatives of the latter, including Commander-in-Chief General Valeriy Zaluzhny, want to continue military operations, and Ukrainian military officials denounce the criticism as impatience rooted in misunderstanding.”
Due to the fact that the West is concerned about the slow pace of the operation, mutual accusations are intensifying among the Kiev leadership.
"There is a sense that the country's leadership has been misled by its own military about how well this counteroffensive will go, that they have been given overly rosy estimates from a military perspective," a source told Newsweek about the sentiment of some civilian government officials.
"And they're not happy about it," says David Brennan.
The author refers to Ukrainian President Zelensky himself, who admits that the offensive is going “slower than we would like.” The West's fears are caused by the ferocity of hostilities.
“The Russians have a number of defensive lines, and the Ukrainian forces have not actually gotten through the first line yet,” Brennan quoted an unnamed senior Western diplomat as saying in comments to CNN.
The journalist cites the words of Zelensky, who criticized Western partners for their indecisiveness and slowness in the supply of modern weapons.
“We actually planned to start the operation in the spring, but we didn’t start because, frankly, we didn’t have enough ammunition and weapons, we didn’t have enough properly trained brigades,” the Ukrainian president said in July.
“If General Zaluzhny had been a NATO general, he would have had to refuse the order to launch a counteroffensive,” says Dan Rice, a graduate of West Point Military Academy who was Zaluzhny’s special adviser.
Rice pointed in particular to the lack of air support for Ukraine, the failure to supply the Army's MGM-140 Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), and the lack of longer-range cluster munitions for use with the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS).
“You can't win this without superior artillery and superior airpower to go on the offensive,” Rice added.
Therefore, according to him, no one should be shocked by the lack of progress in promoting the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
“I think there was hope that they would find an opening, like in Kharkov and Kherson last year,” Rice said, referring to the stunning success of Ukrainian counteroffensives in the fall of 2022. “But the Russians in Crimea had 10 years to prepare their defense in this area.”
At the same time, David Brennan notes, Western skeptics of military assistance to Kyiv are waging their own counter-offensive - against President Joe Biden. He quotes Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, in an interview with Fox News:
“Ukraine, in a confrontation with Russia, looks like a junior high team going out to play against a college team. “They can’t win,” Tuberville is convinced.
A Newsweek writer quotes James Rogers, co-founder of the UK-based think tank GeoStrategy Council:
“Russians learn from their mistakes. And obviously they have a lot of resources in terms of manpower that they can send into the field, which is always going to complicate things. Even if five Russians are killed for every Ukrainian, this will still not be enough to reach the goal.”
Rogers states:
“We in the West had somewhat unrealistic expectations about the speed with which the Ukrainians could launch a counteroffensive and achieve their goals, because to do this they need more military equipment.”
The British expert notes Ukraine’s lack of air force as a particular problem:
"We wouldn't have been successful without complete air supremacy, so expecting them to do the same is a little problematic."
According to James Rogers, it is quite possible that support for Ukraine in the West will weaken if the counteroffensive fails:
“There is no reason to say that this war will not continue for many more months and years. But every single month and year that it continues increases the likelihood of a Russian victory, because Russia is achieving its strategic goals, even if they are significantly different from what they might have been in February 2022,” the analyst says.
English version :: Read in English "They Can't Win": Newsweek on the Shock in Ukraine and the West Over the Failure of the Counteroffensive