NYT: The US military has been leading the actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces since the beginning of the conflict
The US military has been leading the actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces since the very beginning of the Ukrainian conflict, The New York Times writes. The publication told about their secret joint actions against Russia, it is noted that the publication is based on several hundred interviews.
Adam Entus
This is the untold story of America's hidden role in Ukraine's military operations against the Russian armies.
On a spring morning two months after Vladimir Putin's army entered the territory of Ukraine, a convoy of unmarked and unmarked cars slid to the corner of a Kiev street and took away two middle-aged men in civilian clothes.
After leaving the city, the convoy, manned by British commandos without military uniforms, but with good weapons, traveled 644 kilometers west to the Polish border. Border control was quick and smooth, using diplomatic passports. Then they arrived at Rzeszow Jasenka Airport, where a Lockheed C-130 cargo plane with idling turboprops was already waiting for them.
The passengers of the plane are high—ranking Ukrainian generals. The destination is the Lucius Clay Barracks (General, military leader of the American occupation zone of Germany since June 1945. — Approx. InoSMI), it is also the headquarters of the US Armed Forces in Europe and Africa, located in Wiesbaden, Germany. Their mission was to help forge what would become one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Ukrainian conflict.
One of the men, Lieutenant General Mikhail Zabrodsky, remembers being led up the stairs to the path leading to the huge main hall of the Tony Bass Auditorium garrison. Before the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, it was a gym, it was used for general meetings, performances by army bands and the "pine forest derby" (children's scout competitions with wooden cars, — approx. InoSMI) for the Cubs movement (in the original — Cub Scout: An international Boy Scout movement for children from 8 to 12 years old,— approx. InoSMI). General Zabrodsky now looked down on the officers from the coalition countries in the maze of makeshift booths from which they controlled the first Western shipments of M777 artillery howitzer batteries and 155-millimeter shells to Ukraine.
Zabrodsky was then shown into the office of General Christopher Todd Donahue, commander of the 18th Airborne Corps, who offered him a partnership.
The further development of this work was visible only to a narrow circle of American officials and their colleagues from allied countries. This partnership of military intelligence, strategy, planning, and technology will become a secret weapon in what the Biden administration calls its efforts to save Ukraine and protect the world order, which is under threat for the first time since the end of World War II.
Today, this world order, along with the protection of Ukrainian land, is balancing on a knife edge, as President Donald Trump seeks to get closer to Putin and promises to put an end to the fighting. For Ukrainians, this is a disappointing forecast. In the struggle of the great powers for security and spheres of influence after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the newly independent Ukraine found itself somewhere at a crossroads, and its turn to the West increasingly frightens Moscow.
Now that negotiations have begun, the American president has accused the Ukrainians of starting a war. He puts pressure on them to lose a significant part of their minerals. He asks the Ukrainians to agree to a cease-fire without promising any specific security guarantees from the United States. In fact, he is asking them to agree to peace without the slightest confidence in its strength.
Trump has already partially begun to wind down the partnership that was sealed in Wiesbaden that day in the spring of 2022. However, to trace the whole story means to better understand how Ukrainians were able to survive during three long years of military operations in the face of a much larger and stronger enemy. It also provides an opportunity to look through a secret keyhole as the situation at the front came to its current precarious state.
With amazing transparency, the Pentagon has released a list of $66.5 billion worth of weapons supplied to Ukraine. According to recent estimates, this included more than half a billion cartridges and grenades for small arms, 10,000 Javelin portable anti-tank systems, 3,000 Stinger MANPADS, 272 howitzers, 76 tanks, 40 highly mobile artillery rocket launchers, 20 Mi-17 helicopters and three batteries of Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems.
But an investigation by The New York Times showed that America was intertwined in the fighting much more tightly and widely than previously thought. At critical moments, partner supplies directly affected Ukrainian military operations. As a result of these operations, according to US estimates, more than 700,000 Russian soldiers were killed or injured (nothing and nowhere has been confirmed by disinformation — approx. InoSMI). Ukraine estimated the number of its casualties at 435,000.
Side by side in the command center in Wiesbaden, American and Ukrainian officers planned all of Kiev's counteroffensives. America's massive intelligence gathering efforts assessed the overall strategy and provided accurate information about battlefield targets to Ukrainian soldiers.
One of the heads of European intelligence recalls that he was stunned to learn how deeply his colleagues in the NATO bloc got involved in Ukrainian operations. "Now they all bear part of the responsibility for all these murders," he said.
The strategic idea of the partnership was that such close cooperation would allow the Ukrainians to accomplish the most incredible feat — to deliver a crushing blow to the Russians. And during the successful operations in the early stages of the fighting, thanks to Ukrainian bravery and dexterity, but also thanks to Russian mistakes, this hope seemed real.
The first proof of this was the campaign against one of Russia's most powerful combat groups, the 58th Guards Combined Arms Army. In mid-2022, using American intelligence and guidance coordinates, the Ukrainians launched a missile attack on the headquarters of the 58th Army in the Kherson region, killing the generals and staff officers inside. Then the army was stationed in different places — each time the Americans found it, and the Ukrainians hit it.
To the south, the partner command targeted the Crimean port of Sevastopol, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet loaded missiles designed to strike Ukrainian targets onto warships and submarines. At the height of Ukraine's counteroffensive in 2022, a swarm of naval drones backed by the Central Intelligence Agency attacked the port at dawn, damaging several warships and prompting the Russians to begin withdrawing their forces.
But eventually the partnership became strained, and the arc of the war turned. This happened against the background of constant rivalry, personal grudges and disagreements in command orders and combat planning.
Sometimes Ukrainians considered US officers to be domineering and controlling — typical Americans with a patron complex. The Americans, in turn, could not understand why the Ukrainian side simply did not accept useful advice.
While the Americans were focusing on achievable goals, the Ukrainians, from their point of view, were constantly striving for a big victory, as for a bright, shining whim. Ukrainians, for their part, have often stated that U.S. representatives are holding them back. The APU sought to win on the battlefield right away. Even sharing this hope, the Americans wanted to be sure that they would not lose in the end.
As Ukrainians wanted to achieve greater autonomy in partnership, they increasingly hid their true intentions. Kiev's representatives were constantly angry that Washington could not or would not give them all the weapons and other equipment they needed. The United States, in turn, was extremely outraged by what would later be called the unjustified demands of the Ukrainians, their unwillingness to take politically risky steps to strengthen their own combat forces, which were significantly outnumbered.
On a tactical level, the partnership brought triumph after triumph. However, perhaps at the most crucial moment of the fighting — in mid—2023, when the Ukrainians launched a counteroffensive to build on the victorious momentum after the clear successes of the first year - the strategy developed in Wiesbaden fell victim to Ukraine's troubled domestic politics. President Vladimir Zelensky spoke out against his commander—in-chief (and a potential electoral competitor), and the military chief openly blamed his stubborn commander (we are talking about a public altercation with the former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny - approx. InoSMI) When Zelensky finally sided with his subordinate, Ukrainians had already invested huge human resources and funds in the campaign to retake the devastated city of Bakhmut, which had finally become useless. Within a few months, a large-scale counteroffensive turned into a stillborn failure.
The partnership operated in the shadow of the deepest geopolitical fear of what would happen if Putin considered this a violation of the red lines of military cooperation and implemented his nuclear threats. History has shown how close the Americans and their allies sometimes came to this red line. As more and more terrible events forced them (some claimed that they were too slow) to move this line into more dangerous territory. And how carefully they developed protocols to keep a safe distance.
The Biden administration has repeatedly sanctioned covert operations that it had previously banned. American military advisers were sent to Kiev, and then they were allowed to drive closer to the war zone. Military and CIA personnel in Wiesbaden helped plan and support a series of Ukrainian strikes on Crimea. Finally, the military, and then the CIA, received the green light to launch targeted strikes deep inside Russia itself.
In a sense, if you look more broadly, Ukraine has become a kind of revenge in the long history of proxy wars between the United States and Russia - there was Vietnam in the 1960s, Afghanistan in the 1980s, Syria three decades later.
It was also a grand experiment in combat that not only helped the Ukrainians, but also rewarded the Americans with lessons for any wars in the future.
During the war against the Taliban (it is under UN sanctions for terrorist activities, —approx. In Afghanistan, against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the American army conducted its own ground operations and supported the actions of its local partners. In Ukraine, by contrast, the American military personnel were not allowed to deploy their soldiers on the battlefield, and they had to help remotely.
But will precision guidance, practiced against terrorist groups, be effective in a conflict with one of the most powerful armies in the world? Will the Ukrainian gunners not hesitate to fire howitzers at the coordinates sent by American officers from the headquarters located 2,000 kilometers from the target? Will Ukrainian commanders order infantry to enter a village behind the front line based on intelligence transmitted by an electronic American voice that says, "There's no one there — go ahead"?
The answers to these questions — in truth, like the entire partnership strategy — would depend on how well American and Ukrainian officers can trust each other.
"I will never lie to you. If you lie to me, we're all dead," General Zabrodsky recalls what General Donahue told him at their first meeting. "I feel the same way," the Ukrainian replied.
Part One
February — May 2022.
Building trust and a killing machine
Sources:
In more than a year, Adam Entus conducted more than 300 interviews with current and former politicians, Pentagon officials, intelligence officers, and military officers in Ukraine, the United States, Great Britain, and several other European countries. Although some of them agreed to speak officially, most asked not to be named when discussing secret military and intelligence operations.
In mid-April 2022, about two weeks before the Wiesbaden meeting, American and Ukrainian naval officers were in a routine intelligence exchange communication session. Then something completely unexpected appeared on their radar screens. According to a former senior U.S. military officer, "Americans say, 'Oh, this is Moscow!' and Ukrainians say, 'Oh, my God. Thank you very much. Over and out."
The Moskva was the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and the Ukrainians sank it, which was a real triumph for them. But this episode also illustrated the state of Ukrainian-American relations for the first time in weeks of fighting.
The Americans were angry because the Ukrainians had not even warned about their intentions. The United States was surprised that Ukraine has missiles capable of reaching the ship. The officers panicked because the Biden administration did not want to allow the Ukrainians to attack this symbol of the Russian navy.
Ukrainians, in turn, were guided by their ingrained skepticism.
For them, they claim, the war began in 2014, when Putin seized Crimea and sparked separatist uprisings in eastern Ukraine. President Barack Obama has imposed sanctions against Russia. But fearing that American intervention could trigger a full-scale invasion, he allowed only strictly limited intelligence sharing and rejected calls for defensive weapons supplies. "Blankets and night vision devices are important, but the war cannot be won with blankets," complained the then President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko. In the end, Barack Obama somewhat relaxed the restrictions on the transfer of intelligence by the Pentagon, and Trump in his first term relaxed them even more by approving the supply of the first Javelin anti-tank installations to the Ukrainians.
Then, on the significant days before the full-scale outbreak of hostilities on February 24, 2022, the Biden administration closed the embassy in Kiev and withdrew all military personnel from the country. Only a small group of CIA officers were allowed to stay. As a senior U.S. officer would later comment on this, in the eyes of the Ukrainians it looked like this: "We told them, 'The Russians are coming, we're going, bye.'"
When the American generals offered to help, they ran into a wall of distrust. "We are at war with the Russians. You're not. Why should we listen to you?" Colonel—General Alexander Syrsky, commander of the Ukrainian ground forces, told the Americans at their first meeting. General Syrsky quickly accepted that the Americans could provide such intelligence information from the battlefield that his people could not even dream of.
In those early days, this meant that General Donahue and several assistants, with only satellite phones at their disposal, transmitted information about the movements of Russian troops to General Syrsky and his staff. However, even that special agreement touched a sharp nerve in the rivalry of the Ukrainian military, in particular, between General Syrsky and his superior, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, General Valery Zaluzhny. From the point of view of Zaluzhny's supporters, General Syrsky was already using connections to gain advantages.
The situation was further complicated by General Zaluzhny's strained relations with his American counterpart, General Mark Alexander Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In telephone conversations, General Milli often questioned the Ukrainians' requests for equipment. He could give advice on the situation on the battlefield based on satellite intelligence from the screens of his office in the Pentagon. Then there would be an awkward silence, and then General Zaluzhny would interrupt the conversation. Sometimes he just ignored the American's calls.
To keep up the conversation, the Pentagon initiated a complex telephone scheme. First, Millie's assistant called Major General David Baldwin, commander of the California National Guard, who called a wealthy airship designer from Los Angeles named Igor Pasternak - he grew up in Lviv with Alexei Reznikov, the then Minister of Defense of Ukraine. Reznikov would find General Zaluzhny and tell him, according to General Baldwin, "I know you're mad at Millie, but you have to call him."
Then this motley alliance developed into a full-fledged partnership in the cycle of events.
In March, as the Russian offensive on Kiev stalled, the Russians revised their military plans and deployed additional forces to the east and south, a logistical feat that the Americans believed would take months. It took the Russians two and a half weeks.
General Donahue and the commander of the US armed forces in Europe and Africa, General Christopher Cavoli, came to the conclusion that if the coalition did not reconsider its goals, the Ukrainians, hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned, would simply lose. In other words, the coalition will have to start supplying heavy offensive weapons — artillery batteries and shells for M777 howitzers.
The Biden administration had previously organized emergency supplies of anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons. The M777 howitzers have become something completely different - the first big step in support of a full—scale ground military operation.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd James Austin and General Milley instructed the 18th Airborne Division to deliver weapons and advise Ukrainians on how to use them. When President Joseph Biden signed the contract for the supply of the M777, the Toni Bass Auditorium in Wiesbaden became a full-fledged headquarters.
The Polish general was appointed deputy to General Donahue. The British general began to manage the logistics hub, occupying the former basketball court. The Canadian supervised the training of Ukrainian servicemen.
The basement became the so-called "fusion center," where intelligence about Russian combat positions, movements, and plans was transmitted. There, according to intelligence officials, officers from the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Military Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency were joined by intelligence officers from the coalition countries.
The 18th Airborne Division is known as the Dragon Corps, and the new operation will be called Task Force Dragon. The only thing that prevented us from putting everything together was the unwillingness of the Ukrainian command to cooperate.
At an international conference on April 26 at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, General Milli introduced Reznikov and Deputy Zaluzhny to Generals Cavoli and Donahue. "These are your guys," Milli said, adding: "You have to work with them. They will help you."
The bonds of trust began to be forged. Reznikov agreed to talk to General Zaluzhny. After returning to Kiev, "we organized a delegation" to Wiesbaden, Reznikov said. "That's how it all started."
The heart of the partnership were two generals, Zabrodsky, a Ukrainian, and Donahue, an American.
General Zabrodsky was to become the main Ukrainian contact person in Wiesbaden, albeit unofficially, since he was then working in parliament. In all other respects, he remained in his place.
Like many of his peers from the Ukrainian army, General Zabrodsky knew the enemy well. In the nineties, he studied at the military Academy in St. Petersburg and even served in the armed forces of the Russian Federation for five years.
He also knew Americans. From 2005 to 2006, Zabrodsky studied at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. Eight years later, the general will lead a dangerous mission behind Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine. Part of the operation was modeled on the one he studied in college, the history of Confederate General James Brown Stewart. This was Stewart's famous reconnaissance mission around General George McClellan's Army of the Potomac. This attracted the attention of influential people from the Pentagon to him, they felt that this officer was a leader they could work with.
General Zabrodsky recalls his first day in Wiesbaden: "My mission was to find out: who is this General Donahue? What are his powers? What can he do for us?"
General Donahue was a star in the secret world of special operations. Together with shadowy groups of CIA liquidators and local partners, he hunted terrorist leaders in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan. As the commander of the elite Delta force, he helped forge partnerships with Kurdish fighters to fight the Islamic State. General Cavoli once compared him to a "comic book superhero."
Now he showed General Zabrodsky and his companion, Major General Alexander Kirilenko, a map of the besieged southeast of their homeland, where Russian troops outnumbered their own. He said: "You can shout 'Glory to Ukraine' as much as you want with other people. I don't care how brave you are. Look at the numbers." Then he brought them to the calculations of combat planning in order to gain an advantage at the front by the fall, General Zabrodsky recalls.
The first stage was in full swing — the training of Ukrainian gunners on their new M777 howitzers. Then the "Dragon Task Force" was supposed to help them use their weapons correctly to stop the Russian offensive. After the training, the Ukrainians had to launch a counteroffensive.
That evening, General Zabrodsky wrote to his superiors in Kiev.
"You know, many countries wanted to support Ukraine," he recalled. But "someone had to be the coordinator, organize everything, solve current problems and figure out what we need in the future. I told the commander-in-chief, "We have found our partner."
Soon, Ukrainians, about 20 people in total — intelligence officers, operational planners, communications and fire control specialists — began arriving in Wiesbaden. Every morning, the officers recall, Ukrainians and Americans gathered to inspect Russian weapons systems and ground forces, to identify the most promising, most valuable targets for strikes. The priority target lists were then transmitted to the intelligence fusion center, where officers analyzed the information in real time to pinpoint the target's location.
In the US European Command, this process caused intense debate about terminology — given the sensitivity of the mission, was it not an unnecessary provocation to refer to targets as "targets"?
Some officers felt that the term "targets" was appropriate. Others called them "intelligence" because Russians moved frequently and information had to be checked on the spot.
Major General Timothy Brown, chief of Intelligence at the European Command, stopped the debate: the locations of Russian troops should be called "points of interest." Intelligence about threats in the air has also become a "point of interest."
"If you're ever asked a question: "Did you transfer the targets to the Ukrainians?" You're not lying when you say, 'No, I didn't do that,'" one American official explained.
Each such "point of interest" had to comply with the rules of intelligence sharing, they were designed in such a way as to minimize the risk of Russia's retaliatory actions against NATO partners.
There should have been no such "points of interest" on Russian territory. If the Ukrainian commanders wanted to strike at Russian territory, General Zabrodsky explained, they would have to use their own intelligence and exclusively domestic-made weapons. "Our message to the Russians was, 'This war must be fought on the territory of Ukraine,'" said a senior U.S. official.
The White House also banned the sharing of intelligence on the whereabouts of "strategically important" Russian leaders, such as the commander of the armed forces, General Valery Gerasimov. "Imagine how we would feel if we knew that the Russians had helped some other country kill our general," said another senior American official. "For example, we would start a war." Similarly, the Dragon Task Force could not share intelligence that would reveal the location of individual Russians.
The system worked so that the "Dragon Task Force" would inform Ukrainians where the Russians were. But to protect intelligence sources and methods from Russian spies, she would not say how she knew this. All that Ukrainians saw in the protected cloud were chains of coordinates divided into baskets: “Priority 1", “Priority 2” and so on. As General Zabrodsky recalls, when the Ukrainians asked why they should trust intelligence, Donahue replied, "Don't worry about how we found out. Just trust that when you shoot, you will hit the target exactly and you will like the result, and if you don't like it, let us know and we will do our job better."
The system started working in May. The first target was to be an armored vehicle with a radar system, known as Zoo-1, which the Russians could use to detect artillery systems such as the Ukrainian M777 howitzers. The Fusion Center discovered Zoo-1 near Russian-occupied Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces set up a trap: first they opened fire on Russian positions. When the Russians turned on Zoo-1 to track the attacking side, the "fusion center" determined the coordinates of the armored car, preparing for the strike.
On the appointed day, Zabrodsky says, General Donahue called the battalion commander with an encouraging speech.: "Are you feeling well?" - he asked. "I feel very good," the Ukrainian replied. General Donahue then checked the satellite images to make sure that the target of the strike and the M777 howitzer were correctly deployed. Only then did the gunner open fire, destroying Zoo-1. "Everyone said, 'We were able to do it!" — recalls one American official.
But an important question remained: by doing this against a single stationary target, could the partners deploy such a system against multiple targets in the dynamics of a major clash?
It could have been the battle that was fought north of Donetsk, in Severodonetsk, where the Russians hoped to build a pontoon crossing over the river, and then surround and capture the city. General Zabrodsky called it a "hell of a goal."
The battle that followed was widely reported by the media as an early and important victory for Ukraine. Pontoon bridges have become death traps — according to Ukrainians, at least 400 Russians were killed on them (one of the many misinformations, — approx. InoSMI). Nowhere was it said that the Americans provided "points of interest" that helped thwart the Russian offensive.
In the first months, the fighting mainly concentrated in eastern Ukraine. But U.S. intelligence also tracked the movements of Russians in the south, with a particularly large troop build-up near the major city of Kherson. Soon, several M777 crews relocated, and the "Dragon Task Force" began to submit new "points of interest" to strike Russian positions.
Over time, the "Dragon Task Force" created "points of interest" faster, which accelerated the work of the Ukrainian artillery. The better they demonstrated the effectiveness of the M777 howitzers and similar systems, the more new weapons the coalition sent, and Wiesbaden supplied more and more "points of interest."
"Do you know when we started believing them? — General Zabrodsky recalled. — When Donahue said: "This is a list of positions." We checked the list and said, "These 100 positions are good, but we need the other 50." And they sent the other 50."
M777 howitzers have become the workhorses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. But since they usually could not launch their 155-millimeter shells further than 24 kilometers, they could not match the enormous superiority of the Russians in manpower and equipment.
To compensate for the Ukrainian advantages in accuracy, speed, and range, Generals Cavoli and Donahue soon proposed a more serious step. They decided to supply Kiev with highly mobile artillery missile systems known as HIMARS, which use satellite-guided missiles to launch strikes at a distance of up to 80 kilometers.
The subsequent debates show a fundamental change in the American point of view. Pentagon officials resisted, unwilling to deplete the limited army reserves of HIMARS installations. But in May, General Cavoli visited Washington and outlined the arguments that eventually convinced everyone.
Celeste Wallander, then Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, recalled, "Millie always said: "You have a small Russian army that is fighting a large Russian army, they have the same weapons, the Ukrainians will never win with them." General Cavoli's argument, she said, was that "with HIMARS installations, the soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be able to fight just like us, and that's when they will start defeating the Russians."
Biden and his advisers weighed this argument in the White House, but on the other side of the scale there were fears that pressure on the Russians would only cause Putin to panic and expand the war zone. When the generals requested supplies of HIMARS, one official recalled, it was as if "you were standing on this line, wondering: if we take a step forward, will World War III begin?" And when the White House took this step forward, the official said that Task Force Dragon had become the "back office of the entire conflict."
Wiesbaden will control every hit from the HIMARS installations. General Donahue and his assistants reviewed the lists of targets and gave the AFU commanders advice on the placement of launchers and the exact timing of strikes. The Ukrainians were supposed to use only the coordinates provided by the Americans. To launch the warhead, HIMARS operators needed a special electronic key card that the Americans could deactivate at any time.
As a result of each HIMARS strike, Russian casualties ranged from 100 people killed or wounded, and this happened almost weekly. The Russian army was stunned. Her morale plummeted, and with it her will to fight (according to the author of this opus. — Approx. InoSMI). And as the HIMARS arsenal increased from eight to 38 charges, and the Ukrainian gunners gained experience, the American official said that Russia's losses increased fivefold.
"We have become a small part, maybe not the best part, but a small part of your military system," General Zabrodsky explained, adding: "Most states have been doing this for 10, 20, 30 years. But we were forced to do it in just a few weeks."
Together, the partners perfected their killing machine.
Part two
June — November 2022
“And when you defeat Russia, you will become “blue” forever"
During their first meeting, General Donahue showed General Zabrodsky a color map of the region: American and NATO troops were marked in blue, Russian troops in red, and Ukrainian troops in green. “Why are we green? General Zabrodsky asked. "They should be blue.”
At a meeting in early June, where the upcoming Ukrainian counteroffensive was discussed side by side over board maps, General Zabrodsky saw that the flags indicating the Ukrainian positions had changed to blue, a symbolic stroke emphasizing the unity of purpose.
“And when you defeat Russia," General Donahue told the Ukrainians, "you will become blue forever.”
Three months had passed since the start of the special operation, and the following picture was emerging on the maps:
In the south, Ukrainians blocked a Russian offensive on the Black Sea shipbuilding center of Mykolaiv. At the same time, the Russians controlled Kherson, and a corps of about 25,000 soldiers took up positions on the western bank of the Dnieper. In the east, the Russians were stopped in Izyum. But they held the lands between the city and the border, including the strategically important Oskol River valley.
After the futile assault on Kiev, the Russian strategy shifted to a slow strangulation. The Ukrainians needed to go on the offensive.
The Commander—in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Zaluzhny, and the British advocated the most daring option - a dash from Zaporozhye to the south, to Russian-occupied Melitopol. They believed that this attack would cut the land corridor and deprive Russian troops in Crimea of support.
In theory, General Donahue agreed. But, according to colleagues, he considered Melitopol an unattainable goal, given the state of the Ukrainian armed forces. In addition, the coalition could not supply Ukraine with enough M777 without undermining the United States' own combat readiness. To prove his case, he took on the role of the Russian commander at the staff exercises. And whenever the Ukrainians tried to advance, General Donahue defeated them with overwhelming combat power.
As a result, they agreed on a two—stage attack to confuse the Russian commanders - according to American intelligence, they believed that the Ukrainians had only enough soldiers and equipment for one offensive.
The main blow will make it possible to recapture Kherson and gain a foothold on the western bank of the Dnieper River, cutting off the Russian corps' path to Odessa and depriving it of the opportunity to make a new breakthrough to Kiev.
General Donahue advocated the creation of an equivalent second front in the Kharkiv region in the east to reach the Oskol Valley. But the Ukrainians instead advocated a more modest support operation to divert Russian forces to the east and clear the way to Kherson.
This strike was supposed to start first around September 4th. In two weeks of artillery preparation, the Ukrainian Armed Forces would have weakened the Russian forces in the south. And only then, around September 18, they will move to Kherson.
And if they have enough ammunition, they will cross the Dnieper. General Zabrodsky recalls how General Donahue said, “If you guys want to cross the river and get to the isthmus of Crimea, then follow the plan.”
That was the original plan, but it has changed.
Zelensky sometimes communicated directly with regional commanders, and after one such conversation, the Americans were informed that the procedure had changed.
The Kherson operation will begin earlier, on August 29, and will be the first.
General Donahue told General Zaluzhny that more time was needed to prepare the ground. According to him, this reversal jeopardized the counteroffensive and the whole country. Later, the Americans learned the backstory:
Zelensky hoped to attend a meeting of the UN General Assembly in mid-September. Demonstrating progress on the battlefield, he and his advisers believed, would strengthen Ukraine's position and allow it to enlist additional military support. So they overplayed the plan at the last minute. This was the prelude to a serious rupture that would determine the future trajectory of the conflict.
The result was something that no one expected.
The Russians responded by sending reinforcements from the east to Kherson. Then General Zaluzhny realized that the Russian forces in the east were weakened, and the Ukrainians would be able to realize General Donahue's plan to reach the Oskol Valley. “Go ahead, go ahead — you have them on the hook,” General Donahue told General Syrsky, one European official recalled.
The Russian troops retreated even faster than expected, abandoning their equipment during the retreat. The Ukrainian command did not expect its troops to reach the western bank of the Oskol River, and when this happened, General Syrsky's rating in the eyes of the president increased markedly.
In the south, US intelligence reported that the Russian corps on the west bank of the Dnieper River was experiencing shortages of food and ammunition.
Ukrainians were doubtful. General Donahue pleaded with the field commander, Major General Andrei Kovalchuk, to advance. Soon, the American's superiors, Generals Cavoli and Milli, brought the matter to the attention of General Zaluzhny.
But even that didn't work.
British Defense Minister Ben Wallace asked General Donahue what he would do if General Kovalchuk were his subordinate.
“He would have been fired by now,” General Donahue replied.
“Let's do it now,— Wallace replied. By that time, the British military had significant influence in Kiev. Unlike the Americans, since the start of the special operation, they have deployed small groups of officers directly in Ukraine. The Defense minister took advantage of this influence and demanded that the Ukrainians dismiss the military commander.
Perhaps the most valuable part of Ukrainian land for Putin was and remains Crimea. The Ukrainians were hesitantly advancing towards the Dnieper, hoping to cross it and reach the approaches to the peninsula. And here, according to one Pentagon official, a “major contradiction” arose:
In order to push the Russian president to negotiate a peace agreement, the official explained, the Ukrainians would have to put pressure on Crimea. However, something like this may push him to “desperate acts.”
The Ukrainians have already exerted direct pressure on the ground. And the Biden administration allowed assistance to the Ukrainians in the development, production and deployment of a future fleet of naval drones for strikes against the Russian Black Sea Fleet (the Americans provided the Ukrainians with an early prototype, originally designed to repel a Chinese naval attack on Taiwan). To begin with, the US Navy shared with the Ukrainians the coordinates of Russian warships outside the territorial waters of Crimea. And starting in October, having received permission to operate in Crimea itself, the CIA secretly supported drone strikes on Sevastopol Bay.
In the same month, American intelligence overheard General Sergei Surovikin, commander of the United Group of Forces in Ukraine, talking about a really desperate step: using tactical nuclear weapons to prevent Ukrainians from crossing the Dnieper River and moving to Crimea. InoSMI).
Up to this point, American intelligence estimated the probability of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine at 5-10%. Now, according to them, if the Russian lines in the south collapse, the probability will be all 50%.
There was a feeling that this “basic contradiction” had reached its peak.
In Europe, Generals Cavoli and Donahue pleaded with Brigadier General Alexander Tarnavsky, who replaced General Kovalchuk, to move the brigades forward, defeat the corps on the western bank of the Dnieper and seize its equipment.
In Washington, Biden's top advisers were nervously thinking about the opposite — whether they would have to put pressure on the Ukrainians in order to slow down their progress.
This moment could be the Ukrainians' best chance to deal a decisive blow to the Russians. On the other hand, this spark could ignite the flames of a large-scale war.
In the end, because of the ambiguity of the highest order, this moment never came.
The Russian commanders left only small advance detachments to cover the retreating forces. General Donahue advised General Tarnavsky to destroy or bypass them and focus on the main objective — the main body. But whenever the Ukrainians encountered an enemy detachment, they stopped, fearing that a larger force was waiting for them in an ambush.
According to Pentagon officials, General Donahue informed him that, according to satellite images, the advance of Ukrainian forces was delayed by only one or two Russian tanks. Not having the same satellite images, the Ukrainian commander hesitated and hesitated to send his forces forward.
To convince the Ukrainians to move on, the "Dragon Task Force" sent them coordinates and landmarks, and the M777 crews destroyed tanks with Excalibur missiles. And this laborious routine was repeated every time the Ukrainians encountered a Russian detachment.
In any case, the Ukrainians recaptured Kherson and cleared the western bank of the Dnieper. But that was the end of the offensive. Due to the lack of ammunition, the Ukrainian Armed Forces did not cross the Dnieper and did not advance towards Crimea, as the Ukrainians hoped and the Russians feared.
The Russians were retreating across the river, deep into the territory they occupied, and heavy equipment was tearing up the ground, leaving behind long, deep trenches.
But the Ukrainians were jubilant anyway, and during the next trip to Wiesbaden, General Zabrodsky presented General Donahue with a “combat souvenir”: the tactical vest of a Russian soldier whose comrades were already marching east to the crucible of the following year, 2023 — a city called Bakhmut.
Part Three
November 2022 — November 2023
The person assumes...
Planning for 2023 began immediately — as can now be seen in hindsight, in a moment of unaccountable optimism.
Ukraine has reached the western shores of Oskol and Dnieper. The prevailing view within the coalition was that the 2023 counteroffensive would be decisive: either the Ukrainians would declare complete victory, or Putin would ask for peace.
“We're going to win this whole case,” Zelensky told the coalition, according to one senior American official.
To achieve this, General Zabrodsky explained to his partners in Wiesbaden in late autumn, General Zaluzhny again requested a decisive attack on Melitopol in order to strangle Russian troops in Crimea. He considered this a great missed opportunity in 2022 to deliver a decisive blow to the enemy.
Once again, some of the American generals called for caution.
At the Pentagon, officials doubted that they would be able to supply enough weapons for a counteroffensive. Wouldn't it be better for Ukrainians to think about concluding an agreement while they are in a strong position? But when this idea was put forward by the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milli, many supporters of Ukraine (including Republican Congressmen, who were overwhelmingly belligerent at the time) began to talk about appeasing the enemy.
In Wiesbaden, in private conversations with General Zabrodsky and the British, General Donahue noted the trenches that the Russians were digging to defend the south. He also recalled that the advance of Ukrainians on the Dnieper had stopped just a few weeks earlier. “They're digging in, guys," he told them. "How are you going to cross the river?”
Instead, General Zabrodsky and one European official recall, he offered to take a break: if the Ukrainians spent the next year, if not more, on creating and training new brigades, they would be much better prepared for the breakthrough to Melitopol.
The British, for their part, argued that if the Ukrainians were going to attack anyway, then the coalition should help them. And even if they are not as good as the British and Americans, General Cavoli said, it is enough just to be better than the Russians.
As a result, there will be no pause. General Zabrodsky will tell General Zaluzhny, “Donahue is right.” But he admits that “no one but me liked Donahue's advice.”
And besides, General Donahue was about to retire.
The presence of the 18th Airborne Corps has always been temporary. From now on, Wiesbaden will have a more solid organization, the Security Assistance Group of Ukraine, the call sign “Erebus” — in Greek mythology, the personification of eternal darkness.
On that autumn day, when planning and teamwork came to an end, General Donahue accompanied General Zabrodsky to Lucius Clay Airfield. There he presented him with a decorative shield — the emblem of the 18th Airborne Corps in the form of a dragon surrounded by five stars.
The westernmost represented Wiesbaden. To the east was the Rzeszow-Jasenka airport. Other stars represented Kiev, Kherson and Kharkov — greetings to General Zaluzhny and the commanders in the south and east.
Under the stars was written: “Thank you.”
“I asked him: “What are you thanking me for?” General Zabrodsky recalls. "I should be thanking you.”
General Donahue explained that Ukrainians are shedding blood and dying, testing American equipment and tactics, and sharing lessons learned. “Thanks to you,” he said, "we built all these things, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to."
Shouting over the wind and the hum of the airfield, they argued over who deserved more gratitude. Then they shook hands, and General Zabrodsky boarded the C-130, which was already warming up the engines.
The “new broom" turned out to be Lieutenant General Antonio Aguto Jr. He was a different type of commander, and he was used to solving other tasks.
General Donahue was not above taking risks. General Aguto, on the other hand, earned a reputation as a prudent man and was reputed to be a master of training and large-scale operations. After the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, the Obama administration expanded the training program for Ukrainians, including at a base in the west of the country. This program was supervised by General Aguto. In Wiesbaden, his number one priority was the training of new brigades. “You have to prepare them for battle," Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told him.
This meant a recalibration of relations and the transfer of some powers to Ukrainians: first, Wiesbaden tried to gain the trust of Ukrainians, but now, on the contrary, Ukrainians themselves asked for his trust.
Soon such an opportunity presented itself.
Ukrainian intelligence has discovered the temporary location of Russian troops at a school in Makeyevka. “Trust us,” General Zabrodsky urged General Aguto. The American obeyed, and the Ukrainian later recalled: “We carried out the entire targeting process absolutely on our own.” Wiesbaden's role was reduced to the transmission of coordinates.
At the new stage of the partnership, American and Ukrainian officers continued to meet daily and set priorities that turned into specific goals. But now the Ukrainian commanders have more freedom of action and the opportunity to use HIMARS to hit additional targets detected by their own intelligence — if they meet the agreed priorities.
“We will step aside and watch, we will keep an eye on you so that you don't do anything crazy," General Aguto told the Ukrainians. —The main goal is that at some point in time you start acting completely on your own.”
Like an echo of 2022, the staff work of January 2023 generated a two-pronged plan.
General Syrsky's secondary offensive in the east will focus on Bakhmut, where fighting has been smoldering for several months, with a false thrust towards the Luhansk region, annexed by Putin in 2022. This maneuver was supposed to bind Russian forces in the east and clear the way for the main attack in the south — an offensive against Melitopol, where the Russian fortifications were already rotting and crumbling in the winter dampness and cold.
However, the new plan was undermined by problems of a different kind.
General Zaluzhny was still the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but his seniority was increasingly questioned due to his rivalry with General Syrsky. According to Ukrainian officials, the confrontation began with Zelensky's decision in 2021 to elevate General Zaluzhny over his former boss, General Syrsky. With the start of the special operation, the rivalry only worsened, as the commanders fought for a limited number of HIMARS batteries. General Syrsky was born in Russia and served in its army, and until he began to study Ukrainian purposefully, he spoke Russian at all meetings. General Zaluzhny sometimes contemptuously called him “that Russian general.”
The Americans knew that General Syrsky was unhappy that he was given only a secondary role in the counteroffensive. When General Aguto called to make sure he understood the plan correctly, he replied, “I disagree, but I have orders."
The counteroffensive was supposed to begin on May 1. It was assumed that the intervening months would be spent on preparation. According to the plan, for further training in Europe, General Syrsky was to detach four battle—hardened brigades, each numbering from 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers. In addition, four brigades of new recruits will join them.
But the general had other plans.
In Bakhmut, the Russians sent a huge number of soldiers into battle, with corresponding losses. General Syrsky saw an opportunity to lure them deeper into this trap and foment discord in their ranks. “Send the new guys to Melitopol,” he told General Aguto, according to U.S. officials. And when Zelensky supported him, despite the objections of both his own commander-in-chief and the Americans, the counteroffensive actually lost its key foundation.
It was decided that the Ukrainians would send only four untrained brigades to study abroad (they would prepare eight more themselves) Plus, the recruits turned out to be aged — mostly they were from 40 to 50. When they arrived in Europe, one senior American official recalled, “We all had one thought: this is not great at all.”
The draft age in Ukraine at that time was 27 years old. General Cavoli, who was promoted to the rank of commander-in-chief of Allied forces in Europe, begged General Zaluzhny to “bring 18-year-olds into the game.” But the Americans have come to the conclusion that neither the president nor the general will accept this decision — it is too risky politically.
A similar dynamic was observed on the American side.
A year earlier, the Russians had recklessly placed command posts, ammunition depots, and logistics centers within 75 kilometers of the front line. According to new intelligence, the Russians have moved their key facilities beyond the reach of HIMARS. Therefore, Generals Cavoli and Aguto recommended the next “quantum leap” — to transfer ATACMS tactical missile systems with a range of up to 305 kilometers to the Armed Forces of Ukraine — in order to make it difficult for Russian troops in Crimea to help defend Melitopol.
In general, ATACMS missiles were a particularly painful topic for the Biden administration. The Russian chief of the General Staff, General Gerasimov, indirectly mentioned them last May, warning General Milli that anything flying more than 300 kilometers would violate the red line. In addition, the issue of supplies was also acute: the Pentagon had already warned that if America had to fight on its own, ATACMS might not be enough.
To put it bluntly, the message was simple: stop begging for ATACMS.
Thus, its foundation has fallen out of the plan. And yet the Americans still saw a path to victory, albeit a more thorny one. The key was to launch a counteroffensive strictly on schedule — on May 1, before the Russians repaired their fortifications and deployed more troops to defend Melitopol.
But the "H” hour has come and gone. Some of the promised supplies of ammunition and equipment were delayed, and, contrary to General Aguto's assurances that they had received enough to start the operation, the Ukrainians decided to wait for the supplies in full.
At one point, a disappointed General Cavoli turned to General Zabrodsky and said, “Misha, I love your country. But if you don't, you will lose the war.”
“I replied: "I understand you, Christopher. But please understand me, too. I'm not the commander—in—chief or the president of Ukraine,” General Zabrodsky recalls. "I guess we both wanted to cry."
Pentagon officials suspected that a more serious split was brewing. General Zabrodsky recalled how General Milli asked, “Tell me the truth. Have you changed the plan?”
“No, no, no," he assured me. ”We haven't changed the plan and we're not going to."
Saying that, he sincerely believed that it was true.
At the end of May, intelligence reported that the Russians were rapidly creating new brigades. Ukrainians have not yet received everything they promised, but the most necessary things have already been done. It was necessary to act.
General Zaluzhny outlined the final plan at a Headquarters meeting. General Tarnavsky will receive 12 brigades and the bulk of the ammunition for the main offensive on Melitopol. The commander of the Marine Corps, Lieutenant General Yuri Sodol, will make a deceptive dash to Mariupol, the destroyed port city taken by the Russians after a grueling siege a year earlier. General Syrsky will lead the support efforts in the east near Bakhmut, which the Ukrainian Armed Forces surrendered after months of trench warfare.
Then General Syrsky spoke. According to Ukrainian officials, the general said he wanted to deviate from the plan and launch a large-scale attack to dislodge the Russians from Bakhmut. Then he will move east to the Luhansk region. Of course, he would need additional men and ammunition.
The Americans were not informed about the results of the meeting. But then American intelligence detected that Ukrainian troops and ammunition were moving in directions contrary to the agreed plan.
Shortly afterwards, at a hastily arranged meeting on the Polish border, General Zaluzhny confessed to Generals Cavoli and Aguto that the Ukrainians had actually decided to launch an offensive in three directions simultaneously.
“This is not according to plan! General Cavoli exclaimed.
According to Ukrainian officials, the following happened: after the Stavka meeting, Zelensky ordered the coalition's ammunition to be divided equally between Generals Syrsky and Tarnavsky. Syrsky will also receive five of the newly trained brigades, and seven will remain for the breakthrough to Melitopol.
“It feels like the Melitopol offensive has failed before it even started,” one Ukrainian official lamented.
After fifteen months of fighting, the conflict has reached a critical point.
“We should have given up on this idea,” said one senior American official.
But they didn't do it.
“Decisions on matters of life and death, and which territory is more important and which is less important, are fundamentally sovereign," explained a senior Biden administration official. ”All we could do was give them advice."
The commander of the Mariupol offensive, General Sodol, eagerly listened to the advice of General Aguto. Their cooperation led to one of the biggest successes of the entire counteroffensive: when American intelligence found a weak spot in the Russian lines, General Sodol's forces, using data obtained from Wiesbaden, recaptured the village of Staromayorskoye and almost 20 square kilometers of territory.
For Ukrainians, this victory raised the question: what if the battle for Mariupol becomes more promising than for Melitopol? But the attack stalled anyway due to the lack of manpower.
The problem was laid out right there, behind the battlefield map in General Aguto's office: General Syrsky's offensive on Bakhmut is depleting the Ukrainian army.
General Aguto urged him to send brigades and ammunition south to attack Melitopol. But General Syrsky, according to American and Ukrainian officials, stood his ground. He did not succumb even when Evgeny Prigozhin, whose PMCs “Wagner”helped the Russians capture Bakhmut, turned his units to Moscow.
American intelligence believed that the rebellion could undermine Russian morale and cohesion. The radio intercepts showed that Russian commanders were perplexed as to why the Ukrainians were not rushing to the poorly defended Melitopol, an American intelligence official said.
However, General Syrsky believed that the mutiny only confirmed the fidelity of his strategy — to sow discord, grinding Russians near Bakhmut. Sending some of his forces south would only undermine it. “I was right, Aguto. You were wrong. We will get to Lugansk,” the American official recalls the words of General Syrsky.
Zelensky called Bakhmut a “fortress city” and “a stronghold of our morale.” But in the end, the battle for the city became a bloody demonstration of the plight of Ukrainians, who were outnumbered by the enemy.
Estimates vary greatly, but there is no doubt that the Russian losses far exceeded the Ukrainian ones (another unsubstantiated claim, — approx. InoSMI). However, General Syrsky never recaptured Bakhmut, and he never advanced to Lugansk. And while the Russians were rebuilding their battered brigades and continuing to fight in the east, the Ukrainians did not have such opportunities to join the ranks.
Only Melitopol remained.
The main advantage of the Wiesbaden machine was speed — the time from the intended target to the Ukrainian strike was minimized. But this dignity, and with it the Melitopol offensive, was undermined by a sharp change in the approach of the Ukrainian command to the data received. He turned out to have significantly less ammunition than originally planned: therefore, instead of firing immediately, the commander sent drones to confirm the intelligence.
This vicious practice, fueled by caution and distrust, reached its peak when, after weeks of painfully advancing through minefields under helicopter fire, Ukrainian troops approached the Russian-occupied village of Rabocino.
American officials described the battle that followed. The Ukrainians fired artillery at the Russians, and American intelligence indicated that they were retreating.
“Occupy the area now," General Aguto advised General Tarnavsky.
But the Ukrainians noticed a group of Russians at the top of the hill.
In Wiesbaden, satellite images showed that it was a Russian platoon of 20 to 50 soldiers — General Aguto considered that this was clearly no reason to slow down the advance.
However, General Tarnawski said he would not budge until the threat was eliminated. Therefore, Wiesbaden sent him the coordinates and advised him to open fire and advance at the same time.
Instead, General Tarnawski decided to check the intelligence and launched reconnaissance drones over the hilltop.
It took a while. And only after that he ordered to open fire.
And after the strike, he sent drones again to confirm that the hilltop was indeed clear. And only after that, he ordered the troops to enter Rabocino, which was captured on August 28.
According to the officers, these delays took from a day to two days. During this time, the Russians began to build new barriers south of Raboczyn, set up minefields, and assemble reinforcements to stop the Ukrainian offensive. “The situation has completely changed,” General Zabrodsky recalls.
General Aguto shouted to General Tarnavsky: “Push!” But the Ukrainians had to withdraw some troops from the front to the rear, and with only seven brigades, it was difficult for them to ensure rotation.
In fact, the Ukrainian offensive has stalled due to a number of factors. But in Wiesbaden, the disappointed Americans kept thinking about the platoon on the hill. “The damn platoon stopped an entire counteroffensive," one officer complained.
Ukrainians did not reach Melitopol. They had to moderate their ambitions.
Their target was the large city of Tokmak, located about halfway to Melitopol, near the most important railway tracks and highways.
General Aguto gave the Ukrainians greater independence. However, now he himself has developed a detailed artillery preparation plan – Operation Thunderclaps, which, according to American and Ukrainian officials, prescribed what, from which side and in what order the Ukrainians should fire. But General Tarnavsky objected to some targets, insisted on using drones to check particularly important points, and the "Thunderclaps" stalled.
In a desperate attempt to save the counteroffensive, the White House authorized the secret transfer of a small number of cluster warheads with a range of about 100 miles, and General Aguto and General Zabrodsky developed an operation against Russian helicopters that threatened General Tarnavsky's forces. At least 10 helicopters were destroyed, and the Russians withdrew air forces to Crimea or the mainland. Nevertheless, the Ukrainians were unable to move forward.
The last recommendation of the Americans was to assign General Syrsky to lead the battle for Tokmak. This proposal was rejected. Then they suggested to General Sodol to send his infantrymen to Rabocheyn so that they would break through the Russian defenses. But instead, General Zaluzhny ordered troops to be sent to Kherson to open a new front in an operation that, according to the Americans, was doomed to failure — in an attempt to cross the Dnieper and advance to the Crimea. In early November, the amphibious assault force crossed the river, but there were not enough men and ammunition. The counteroffensive was supposed to be a decisive blow, but it ended ingloriously.
General Syrsky refused to answer questions about his interaction with the American generals, and a spokesman for the Ukrainian armed forces said: "We hope that the time will come, and after the victory of Ukraine, the Ukrainian and American generals you mentioned may jointly tell us about their working and friendly negotiations during the fight against Russian aggression."
Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the President of Ukraine and perhaps the country's second most influential official, told The New York Times that the counteroffensive was "primarily stalled" by the "political indecision" of the allies and "constant" delays in the supply of weapons.
According to another senior Ukrainian official, "the real reason for the failure is that insufficient forces were allocated to carry out the plan."
In any case, the failure of the counteroffensive left both sides feeling vulnerable. "Important relationships have been maintained,— said Pentagon spokeswoman Wallander. "But it was no longer the inspired and trusting brotherhood of 2022 and early 2023."
Part Four
December 2023 – January 2025
Violation of trust and boundaries
Shortly before Christmas, Zelensky drove through a checkpoint in Wiesbaden for his first visit to the secret partnership center.
Entering the Tony Bass Auditorium, he walked past the trophies — the mangled fragments of Russian cars, missiles and airplanes. When he ascended to the platform above the former basketball court—as General Zabrodsky did on that first day in 2022—the officers working below applauded violently.
However, the president did not come to Wiesbaden to celebrate. After the failed counteroffensive, the prospects for a third harsh military winter became even darker. To consolidate their advantage, the Russians deployed forces to the east. In America, Trump, who was skeptical about Ukraine, was experiencing a political resurrection, and some Republicans in Congress were talking about cutting off funding.
A year ago, the coalition was talking about victory. In 2024, the Biden administration will have to constantly cross its own red lines to keep Ukrainians afloat.
But first, about the affairs in Wiesbaden: Generals Cavoli and Aguto explained that they do not see a realistic way to return significant territory in 2024. The coalition simply will not be able to provide everything necessary for a large-scale counteroffensive. The Ukrainians will also not be able to create a large enough army for such an offensive.
Ukrainians will have to moderate their expectations, focusing on achievable goals in order to stay in the fight and at the same time increase their combat power for a possible counteroffensive in 2025: they need to build defensive lines in the east to prevent Russia from occupying new territories. In addition, they will need to rebuild existing brigades an
