Ukraine is ready to launch the long-awaited counteroffensive against Russia, Oleksiy Danilov, a senior Ukrainian security official, declared yesterday in an interview with the BBC.
Danilov did not want to put a date, but he did affirm that the attacks could start “tomorrow, the day after or in a weekâ€. He also added that the Kyiv government “does not have the right to be wrong” about this decision, because “it is a historic opportunity that we cannot miss.” Danilov is one of Volodimir Zelensky’s closest associates and is currently Ukraine’s National Secretary for Security and Defense.
The senior officer also confirmed that part of Wagner is withdrawing from the city of Bakhmut, the scene of the bloodiest battle of the war that began in February 2022. Danilov pointed out, however, that “the mercenaries are going to regroup to act in other locations on the frontâ€.
Ukraine has been talking about a counteroffensive since the front stabilized in the winter of 2022. However, it has bought all the time possible to train its troops and have all the necessary military equipment to guarantee the advance.
Ukraine needs to show the allies that supply it with weapons that it is capable of mounting a proper counteroffensive. Ukrainian strategists have pushed the demands for weapons to Western countries to the maximum. At the last G7 meeting, US President Joe Biden promised to train the pilots who will operate the F16 fighters, the object of the Ukrainian army’s desire.
Meanwhile, Ukraine harasses the Russians on all fronts. Yesterday, Russian media reported that Ukrainian drones had hit oil pipelines and oil facilities inside Russia. One of the attacks occurred at a maintenance station on the Druzhba pipeline, which supplies oil from western Siberia to Europe.
According to Kommersant, two drones hit a station located northwest of Moscow -Tver region- that serves the Druzhba (Friendship in Russian) oil pipeline on Saturday. Local authorities in Tver said a drone had crashed near the town of Erokhino, some 500 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
Built during the Soviet years, Druzhba has the capacity to pump more than 2 million barrels a day but is severely underutilized since Europe has reduced its dependence on Russian energy. Transneft, operator of the pipeline, carried out the drone attack.
In recent weeks, drone attacks (not claimed by Ukraine) have intensified on Russian soil as a way to disperse the attention of the adversary. Drones have made their appearance in border regions such as Belgorod, but also in the interior (Krasnodarsk) and even in the Kremlin, in the days leading up to the celebration of Victory Day on May 9. Ukraine has always denied it, but US intelligence claims that the drones that crashed into one of the Kremlin domes were operated by Ukrainians.
The United States is more concerned about the appearance of US-made war material in the hands of groups of Russian dissidents and defectors who this week entered Russian territory. John Kirby, a White House spokesman, reiterated this week that he is against its use as it reinforces Russia’s narrative of Western bullying and increasingly involves the American power in the war.
Ukrainian sources have denied that they have supplied these weapons to the groups that entered Russian territory from Ukraine this week and that they probably obtained the armored vehicles they used on the black market.
Ukrainian intelligence has also warned of Russia’s intention to be seeking “a large-scale provocation” at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant to stop the Ukrainian offensive. According to this version, of which no evidence has been offered, Russia is willing to bomb the plant to cause a radioactive leak and seeks international intervention to hinder military actions in the area, the likely scene of the counteroffensive in the south.
