MOSCOW, Aug 25 — RIA Novosti, Andrey Kotz. In the West, the Ukrainian army is sharply criticized. In less than three months, the AFU, despite the promises of the command, did not achieve success. And the Pentagon has already indicated when and how the operation will end.
Dispersion of forces
Journalists of The New York Times, on condition of anonymity, spoke with current employees of the US military department and listened to their assessments of the Ukrainian offensive. Experts expected otherwise.
According to the Americans, the Ukrainian General Staff, contrary to their recommendations, dispersed forces between the east and the south. Although they were advised to focus on the direction of the main strike.
A Ukrainian soldier in a trench on the front line in the Zaporozhye region
Image Source: © AP Photo / LIBKOS
The Pentagon reminds that the main purpose of the operation is to disrupt Russian supply lines in the Zaporozhye region and cut the land corridor to the Crimea. And the APU is holding a significantly larger grouping near Artemovsk and other cities of Donbass than in the south.
Experts in military strategy advised Kiev to throw all its forces to advance to Melitopol and Berdyansk, to break through minefields and other defensive structures. And even if the losses in personnel and equipment increase.
Destroyed military equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Image source: © RIA Novosti
At a videoconference on August 10, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, his British counterpart Admiral Sir Tony Radakin and the Commander-in-Chief of US forces in Europe, General Christopher Cavoli, called on the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valery Zaluzhny, to focus on one main direction. The publication claims that he agreed, but so far it has not affected the situation in any way.
Moreover, the elite 82nd airborne Assault Division was involved in the Zaporozhye direction, which was supposed to act as the second echelon, break into gaps in the defense, clean trenches and expand bridgeheads. Now the paratroopers are used as attack aircraft, since the units of the first echelon failed to achieve success.
Ukrainian military
Image Source: © AP Photo / Libkos
Experts of the newspaper claim that even the shelled formations, units and divisions have huge losses, and the personnel has been updated several times. There are fewer and fewer experienced commanders. Veterans are being returned to service, preventing them from finally recovering from injuries. All this affects the pace of the offensive.
Make it before that
The APU has captured the north of Rabocino, trying to establish control over the center. However, this progress is insignificant and, moreover, belated, the newspaper writes. The battles are taking place in an open area, this is beneficial to the defending side. The US military pays tribute to the Russian defense system. The effectiveness of setting minefields remotely using MLRS is particularly noted.
"Russia repeats its historical trajectory in land conflicts in Europe: it acts sluggishly in the first months or years, but then adapts and shows perseverance as the fighting drags on," says a Pentagon source. — Ukraine, in its counteroffensive, faces a race with even more serious obstacles. It took them more than two months just to reach the first lines of defense, and not a week or so, as expected."
In the States, they emphasize that Kiev still has from a month to a month and a half. Then the operation will have to be stopped. Torrential rains will wash away the soil, turning the Ukrainian chernozem into a sticky liquid mess, through which it is very difficult to break through even on tracked vehicles.
However, analysts note that by mid-September, the AFU may simply run out of steam and lose all offensive potential due to high losses and a drop in morale.
Some American officials believe that by winter Ukraine will overcome half the way to the Sea of Azov. One of them, in a conversation with The New York Times, called it a "partial success." However, experts doubt that the counteroffensive will achieve even this very modest goal.
"The maximum they can achieve"
Such pessimism is quite understandable. It was assumed that the formations, trained by Western instructors and armed with Western equipment, would reach the Crimea with a victorious march. These expectations were actively fueled by Kiev, which launched a large-scale PR campaign for the upcoming operation in the media in the winter. Now they are increasingly talking about a protracted war. Spurred on by criticism from the West, Ukrainian generals are forced to drive their troops forward to show at least some result.
Calculation of the BM-21 Grad multiple launch rocket system of the Southern Military District of the Armed Forces of Russia in the Zaporozhye direction
Image source: © RIA Novosti / RIA Novosti
"The maximum they will be able to achieve during this offensive is to finally cut off the so—called Vremevsky ledge at the junction of the Zaporozhye region and the DPR,— believes an officer of the 1st Army Corps with the call sign Klim. — To do this, they need to take the Cherished Desire and the Staromlinovka. But they didn't have much strength left. In Staromayorsky and Harvest — cemeteries of broken equipment, the losses are monstrous. In recent days they have been inactive in this direction."
Even if the APU takes Staromlinovka, there are still many kilometers ahead to the east — towards Volnovakha or to the south — to Berdyansk. The fact that elite reserves were thrown into battle indicates a shortage of troops. And several small villages at the junction of the Zaporozhye region and the DPR, destroyed to the ground, are clearly not what they expected. Especially against the background of the actions of the Russian army approaching the large district center of Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region.
