“The Ukrainians still have great combat capability, great combat power.” The phrase of the head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, on Thursday at the NATO meeting, is one of those that one would hear when defeat is near, not when an offensive has been launched…
Either those who know are hiding something and things are not going well for the Ukrainians, or there has been so much insistence, for weeks and months, on the Ukrainian counteroffensive that, as soon as a few Leopard tanks and a good handful of armored infantry are lost, It seems like the end of the war.
It is logical that Kyiv had to insist to convince the allies of its capabilities to receive weapons, but it is not so reasonable that everyone expected a spectacular action such as the surprising advances that liberated a large part of the Kharkiv and Kherson region, which forced the Russians to withdraw. The Russians can no longer be caught clueless. Nothing of that. If even the last occasional reader of what happens in this war has been able to know that the Ukrainian attack plan was from the south (as it is happening, unless it is a formidable deception).
So the Russians have had time to prepare their fortifications while the Ukrainians, waiting for Western tanks and armor, but especially long-range missiles and reinforcement of their anti-aircraft defenses, engaged in the bloody battle of Bakhmut, whose cost in practical terms will have been lower for Moscow.
The Ukrainians have so far not engaged large units in their attacks, which have penetrated a few kilometers. It is a very risky operation, on a very broad front. This only marks the beginning. Until now, with the weapons received, such as the British Storm Shadow missiles, with a range of 500 kilometers, and the Himars batteries, they have dedicated themselves to attacking the Russian rear – command and logistics centers, warehouses, etc. – with the ambition to disrupt their supply lines. The same interest and objectives that the Russians have to defend themselves, despite the fact that in the news that the Ukrainians spread it seems that they only engage in terror bombings on the civilian population.
In reality, the Iranian drones over Kyiv or Odessa serve to expend anti-aircraft ammunition, while the Russian Lancet kamikaze drones do cause damage on the front, being able to evade electronic defenses.
These moments seem to be the prelude to the real long war. The United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Netherlands have promised short- and medium-range anti-aircraft missiles to be used at the front, where a greater presence of Russian aviation is expected (there is talk of a large concentration of helicopters); The Danes and the Dutch are buying 14 Leopard tanks from Germany to ship, while Zelenski is aiming to get several dozen from Switzerland. And the coalition of the birds has only just begun, with the pilot training plan announced by NATO (probably started months ago) with a view to sending old F-16s, but not before half a year…
It doesn’t seem like much. So if we mean by counteroffensive just the Ukrainians’ willingness to attack, so much the better.
