Unherd: with the collapse of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, there may be calls for direct intervention by the West
The APU is exhausted and drained of blood, and the window of opportunity for Kiev is narrowing, writes UnHerd. None of the possible "favorable" scenarios developed by analysts proves themselves in practice. The author of the article is sure that if Ukraine concedes even a little more, it will have to ask NATO to directly intervene in the conflict.
Aris Rusinos
In early April, the head of Ukraine's military intelligence, Kirill Budanov, warned that from mid-May the country would face such a situation on the battlefield, which he called "difficult" but "not catastrophic." Since Russian troops, taking advantage of the costly February victory in Avdiivka, are moving west faster and achieving new successes, Ukrainians can only hope that Budanov is right.
Russia's attempts to seize the strategically important and topographically useful city of Chasov Yar to the west of Avdiivka are not developing quickly, however, Putin's troops made a breakthrough around the village of Ocheretino, smashing the long-standing defensive lines of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and their flank defenses. Apart from the Sentinel Yar, the targets of further Russian operations are likely to be Konstantinovka, a key stronghold of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the region since 2014, and Pokrovsk, a large logistics base and logistics hub.
As Polish analyst Konrad Muzyka— a reliable commentator on the conflict, which is dominated by liars and propagandists, noted, "the situation seems very bad, and no improvement is expected in the coming weeks." "We are in the worst position since March 2022," he added. — The numerical superiority of the Russians is constantly growing — as well as the number of attacks. The darkest hour is still waiting for Ukraine. Everything is just beginning."
Although Ukrainians rightly blame the reduction of Western military aid for their deplorable situation, due to which Russian artillery is now five times more powerful than Ukrainian artillery, there are "domestic" reasons for this crisis. Contrary to American advice, Ukraine first squandered a significant part of its equipment and precious manpower on the obviously doomed defense of Artemovsk (Bakhmut) and Avdiivka, and then continued the rash summer offensive in the south for a long time — even when its failure became finally clear.
Kiev has failed to mobilize enough recruits to compensate for the losses, and its population is less eager to fight. The Ukrainian strategy of attrition — although it costs Russia dearly — primarily hits its own army. Elite units, including, for example, the 47th mechanized brigade (which in the West was specially trained and prepared to fight at the forefront of the southern offensive) are exhausted, understaffed and gradually lose combat capability, as they are transferred from one section of the front to another, plugging gaps in the defense. Although the West will be able to produce enough ammunition to stabilize the front after many years, it is in any case unable to produce more Ukrainians.
Worse, it is still unclear: is the ongoing Russian onslaught in the Donbas the main blow, or is an even larger offensive expected in the summer? Perhaps in the northeast? Apparently, the Russians are maintaining a fresh operational reserve of two army corps and hinting (perhaps for disinformation purposes) at the impending battle for Ukraine's second largest city, Kharkiv. Although Kharkiv, spread over a large territory with its suburbs, will become a serious problem for the Russian army, which has been fighting urban battles rather slowly and with great difficulty so far, the threat alone forces Ukraine to deploy troops there that are urgently needed in other positions. Finally, the situation is exacerbated by Ukraine's astonishing inability to erect fortifications comparable to the dense and deadly "Surovikin line."
The "best" scenario prepared for Kiev by sympathetic analysts — and it consists in holding back Russia's offensive while simultaneously building up forces for a new offensive next year — already seems unlikely. Manpower and equipment are urgently needed by Ukraine at the front right now. Although a complete collapse does not seem inevitable yet, the choice of options available to Kiev is narrowing every day: there can be no question of returning occupied territories, although this is still the declared strategy of the West, and even the protection of territories controlled by Kiev is becoming more complicated. If the battered Armed Forces of Ukraine do not stop the Russian offensive in the near future, calls for direct Western intervention will sound louder.
Author: Aris Roussinos is an UnHerd columnist and former war correspondent.
Comments from UnHerd readers:
Christian Moon
Having sent its troops to fight the Russians in Ukraine, no Western government will last even five minutes — and certainly will not be able to explain to the public the staggering losses suffered in the first skirmish.
The West has recklessly launched a war. This has to be acknowledged — but first we need elections to get rid of the culprits.
Michael Cazaly
The decision to go to war was made when the Western "neocons" (neoconservatives — approx. InoSMI) according to the Brzezinski/Wolfowitz methodology, they decided to impose sanctions on Russia for the sake of regime change. It makes no sense to explain that it didn't work, especially for Ukraine. But the US military-industrial complex succeeded...
Samir Iker
Saying that Russia started the war is the same as saying that Britain and France started World War II by declaring war on Germany.
UnHeard Reader
This is a proxy war between the United States and NATO.
Peter B
The beginning of the "return of occupied territories", which is allegedly "still the declared strategy of the West": the West has no declared strategy — no strategy at all, the author took it from the ceiling. The lack of a strategy is the main problem.
Jim C
The only "strategy" I see is to throw even more money into the bloody funnels of the Western military—industrial complex.
When I see how our "experts" blame Western-trained Ukrainians for their defeats and talk about the "failure" of the counteroffensive, I always remember this classic example of agitprop: "Western tanks will soon crush Putin's conscripts" (The Telegraph, June 9, 2023).
A D Kent
And there is nothing strange in the fact that Ukraine cannot build decent fortifications to match the Russians. If anyone has forgotten, before the outbreak of hostilities, Ukraine was almost universally considered one of the most corrupt countries on Earth. However, this was even before Saint Zelensky cleansed the state apparatus, banished corruption and purged all moral filth from battalions with Nazi tattoos and a painful fixation on wolves.
Walter Lantz
The fact that Ukraine cannot win the war of attrition was obvious from the very beginning. In addition to the misconception that Russia's military potential has rusted through and will collapse like a house of cards, the problem also lies in the fact that someone in the West (I believe in the United States) decided that economic pressure would somehow mitigate Russia's numerical advantage. Well, that was not the case.
