Good morning dear reader,
Are you tired of them by now? Threats of a certain Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow?
If Kiev’s counteroffensive is successful, Russia will ignite a “global nuclear fire,” Russia’s ex-president recently rumbled on his Telegram channel.
Actually Moscow’s henchmen have been spreading for weeksthat the Ukrainian offensive has long since been lost. Had Medvedev, more of a Kremlin greeting than someone with power, forgotten that when he wrote his nonsense?
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So the Ukrainian offensive has failed, but if it continues to fail so successfully, then the Kremlin has no choice but to burn itself and the rest of the world up in nuclear Armageddon. Understood? Me neither.
You’re right if you think you should not lightly with the fear of a nuclear war deal with, which also concerns many people in this country. But I believe that the foam beater from Moscow no longer scares anyone.
And yet: The two months since the start of the Ukrainian offensive force one uncomfortable interim report: Ukraine missed its targets in the first phase of the counteroffensive. The Ukrainian armed forces have so far been able to liberate around 250 square kilometers. Measured against the expectations in Kiev and in the West, this is disappointing.
The Ukrainian government itself has set the bar high. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called 2023 the “Year of Victory” and promised to liberate all areas occupied by Russia – including Crimea and Donbass.
That was politically understandable, the Ukrainians needed a ray of hope to weather the Russian missile terror. And the West also had to be kept in line.
Militarily that was short-sighted. The miscalculation concerned western arms aid, of all things.
NATO had trained nine combat brigades in the spring, around 40,000 soldiers. To this end, the West supplied over 300 main battle tanks and 1,500 armored vehicles to support the operation with state-of-the-art equipment.
But apparently that’s exactly what caused problems.
As Michael Kofman, one of the most experienced military experts on the Ukraine war, sums up after his recent trip to Ukraine: “The Western-trained brigades in particular did poorly, some very poorly.”the military researcher said in a podcast.
The reason: the several weeks of training was too short for the Ukrainian soldiers to acquire NATO tactics in the long term. In many cases, it was not possible to transfer combined arms combat to larger formations of the Ukrainian armed forces.
The tactical problems resulted in catastrophic failures, such as the unsuccessful advance near Orikhiw in southern Ukraine at the beginning of June. In the first two weeks alone, 20 percent of the material used was said to have been damaged or destroyed, writes the New York Times, citing Western government officials.
Kofman and the military historian Franz-Stefan Gady speak of one “misguided optimism” associated with western arms. The Russian defense lines proved to be significantly more effective than expected.
The Ukrainian army has learned from its mistakes and is falling back on the tactics it has learned over the past few years: instead of forcing a breakthrough with heavy brigades, the war of attrition with artillery and small attack troops is falling back.
It’s a fight for every hedge, every row of trees, every field. Losing, but at least more successful than in the weeks before.
However, the area gains along the three main axes are small. But the mistakes are not only to be found among the Ukrainians – on the contrary: the West has withheld Kiev from the necessary weapons for months. Valuable time passed while the Russians dug deeper and laid mines.
The West is now stepping on the brakes again. This time, however, it is not the German Chancellor alone who is being accused of timidity.
The F-16 coalition, which originally wanted to start training Ukrainian pilots in August, is taking its time. As the US portal “Politico” reports, no European country has yet developed a training concept there is apparently a lack of “serious commitment”. Germany had already rejected the fighter jet coalition, and the United States was reluctant to participate.
Also on topic cruise missile sets the Berlin-Washington axis to decelerate: US ATACMS (range 200 kilometers) and German Taurus (range 500 kilometers) should not be available for the Ukrainian armed forces for the time being.
Kiev has been asking for these weapons systems for months so that they can attack supply routes deep in the rear of the Russian-occupied territories. Germany has over 600 bunker-busting Taurus systems, 150 of which are said to be ready for immediate use.
So what are you waiting for? Germany and the United States are concerned that Ukraine could use the weapons against targets in Russia. But both the British and the French are already supplying comparable weapons with the Storm Shadow and Scalp systems. Ukraine pledged not to use cruise missiles in Russia. Why shouldn’t that apply to German and American weapons? Or do you just want to stall Kiev?
An uncomfortable suspicion arises. In Berlin and Washington – the two biggest supporters of Ukraine – there seems to be a secret countdown going on, counting down the days of the Ukrainian offensive. The hot phase is expected to last until October before mud season slows the pace of combat. Until then, the West expects successes.
“Ukrainians need to make significant progress and they know it”the former US commander in Iraq and CIA chief, David Petraeus, summed up the mood in Washington on CNN on Tuesday.
Because in the fall, the West could increase the pressure on Kievto negotiate with Moscow. Even if that seems illusory at the moment. The tracks to get there have already been laid. In the spring, the “Wall Street Journal” learned from German, British and French officials that the Europeans had made it clear to Zelenskyy in February that he should negotiate with Russia before the end of the year.
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