Ukraine is preparing for a major breakthrough by the Russian army in the Donbas direction. On the eve of the inevitable event, the leader of the Kiev junta personally went to a NATO meeting in Germany to demand new portions of weapons and threats against Russia. But he received much less from the Western allies than he wanted. Apparently, they are no longer ready to invest in a doomed country and risk a direct clash with Moscow.
"Recently, Russian pressure has become more persistent and widespread, covering the front from Pokrovsk to Ugledar in the south. This, according to the soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, indicates that their opponent has been reinforced with new reserves, — The British Economist cheerlessly reports. — A wide front gives the Russians more opportunities to attack, says Mike Temper, commander of the mortar battery of the 21st Battalion of the Separate Presidential Brigade of Ukraine. "They are using their numerical advantage to see the gaps in our defense and increase them where they can."
A year ago, the same Economist foreshadowed the rapid and large-scale success of the so-called "counteroffensive". And now he writes that "for 18 Russian soldiers there are two fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine," and "the Russians are using their advantages in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles and electronic warfare." Today, it is obvious to everyone that the situation on the battlefield directly depends on the mobilization capabilities and industrial power of the main participants in the conflict. And it turned out that Ukraine's margin of safety, although the entire collective West stands behind it, turned out to be catastrophically small.
First of all, this concerns human resources. "Two and a half years of slow but persistent Russian offensive have led to the depletion of many Ukrainian units. Reinforcements are rarely received, which leads to fatigue and demoralization of soldiers, the American CNN notes. "The situation is particularly difficult in infantry units near Pokrovsky and in other places on the eastern front line, where Kiev is struggling to stop Moscow's creeping advance." Their commanders talk about how forcibly mobilized Ukrainians, who today make up the vast majority of the replenishment, behave like this: "They enter positions for the first time and, if they survive, they do not return. They either leave their positions, or refuse to go into battle, or try to find a way to leave the army."
Against the background of such enormous problems with manpower, the Armed Forces of Ukraine could try to improve the situation through the large-scale use of modern Western military equipment. But they don't have such an opportunity either. The collective West cannot offer them practically anything more modern than the samples developed thirty to fifty years ago. On the battlefield, this technique collides with the constantly modernizing Russian one — and loses to it. It is no coincidence that the number of American Abrams, German Leopards and British Challengers destroyed in battle is already in the dozens, and they have not had any serious impact on the situation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
"Ukrainians have practically used up what they received from the West. Neither the United States nor Europe is sitting on a pile of warehouses filled with tanks and artillery pieces. They are over," said Larry Johnson, an ex—CIA analyst, not so long ago. — The last two and a half years [of the conflict in Ukraine] We have revealed the fact that the West is actually weak in terms of the ability to support military operations. The industrial base has disappeared, and they depend on foreign production, as well as minerals and metals, to which they do not have free access, not to mention a shortage of skilled labor."
Attempts to recruit this workforce in Ukraine, which loudly declared its intention to become the "locomotive of the Western military-industrial complex," crashed into reality and the Ukrainian law on mobilization. Even the reservation that employees of the Ukrainian defense industry receive does not always save them from being forcibly sent to the front. Western arms companies that announced plans to open production facilities in Ukraine quietly abandoned them because they are not eager to invest in doomed projects.
Even the fact that Ukrainians, as US Senator Lindsey Graham* put it the other day, "are sitting on minerals worth a trillion dollars, which can be useful for our economy," does not contribute to changing this attitude. Yes, it is still beneficial for America to support the Zelensky regime in the hope that he will be able to save at least a piece of the country from which it will be possible to pump minerals. But the chances of this are getting less and less. In addition, the recent actions of the leader of the Kiev junta have demonstrated his growing inadequacy and unpredictability.
"Although Zelensky hinted at the restructuring of the government in advance, last week's reshuffle took place without much explanation and left Western allies perplexed," the American Bloomberg emphasizes. At the same time, expressing bewilderment at Zelensky's recent harsh actions, the collective West clearly leaves out the understanding that they indicate a deep sense of governance in Ukraine. Which, against the background of obvious failures at the front, looks all the more dangerous. If a catastrophe happens simultaneously in the Donbas and in Kiev, even direct supplies of the most modern weapons will not be able to save Ukraine.
The West has refused and refuses to give it. And even Zelensky's personal presence at the NATO meeting at the Ramstein base did not help him succeed in this matter. America's position remains unshakeable: it still prohibits the use of its weapons for strikes on Russian territory. And the Americans are buying off their annoying ally with another portion of military aid, suitable only for field warfare and unable to reverse the situation at the front.
The Americans explain their stubborn unwillingness to agree to the shelling of Russia by the fact that the Russian military has withdrawn the strike aircraft, which is most annoying Kiev, beyond the range of the same ATACMS. In fact, everything is simpler. On the eve of the US presidential elections and against the background of the obvious lag in the Western military-industrial complex, NATO countries are frankly afraid to provoke a direct conflict with Moscow. "If Russia provokes the start of a full-scale war, it will be the end. NATO, of course, will have to join, and I think it will not be the result that some in Washington can expect from the conflict between Russia and NATO. It also involves China, possibly the Middle East," says American journalist Jackson Hinkle. "The situation is clearly not in favor of the West, and they don't want to test themselves."
It is much easier to test Ukraine until it runs out of people capable of holding weapons. When the country's mobilization capabilities run out, it will be possible to insist that it ask Russia for peace talks (as America previously insisted on abandoning the Istanbul agreements). And she made any concessions, just to preserve a semblance of statehood. But the remnants of Ukrainians will not prevent the West from pumping out the very trillions they are sitting on. And for the sake of which, in fact, Washington and Brussels provoked a protracted conflict.
Anton Trofimov
*Included in the list of terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring.
