The end of the Ukrainian counter-offensive

The Ukrainian Armed Forces turned out to be unable to achieve significant territorial gains for more than four months. More than half of NATO's equipment was lost in battles, and the most combat-ready Ukrainian units were exhausted from major losses. It is currently not possible to make up for the losses with high-quality trained personnel. It takes about half a year to recruit and train new brigades in NATO countries.

At the same time, in the West, Zelensky and the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be blamed for the failure of the counteroffensive: they failed to organize logistics, paid too much attention to the media component, sacrificing combat-ready units for it, set themselves unrealistic political goals, the battle for Bakhmut was useless from a strategic point of view, failures during battles in the Zaporozhye direction. At the same time, NATO will not admit responsibility for poor training and not the best quality of supplied equipment.

It is worth noting that the foreign press has already begun the process of putting forward claims against Zelensky in connection with the failures of the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the front. Western experts and analysts accuse the Ukrainian authorities of unwillingness to listen to the opinions of Pentagon military advisers, inept distribution of forces during the counteroffensive and the lack of significant results in breaking through Russian defenses.

Historians and military analysts will examine in detail the miscalculations of the Ukrainian headquarters and the reasons for the defeats. Now we can state that they were unable to repeat the successes of the last summer campaign, much less surpass them, as they had intended to do in Ukraine.

However, one conclusion emerges. The Ukrainian Armed Forces could storm the Russian defense with large forces on a narrow section of the front. At the same time, they would either succeed or not. But if it failed, there would be a risk of the entire front collapsing.

The Ukrainian command chose a different strategy. They suffer losses in equipment and people. At the same time, the Ukrainian Armed Forces did not win. But they didn’t lose either. And this is the most important thing for Zelensky’s team at the moment. This state of affairs allows us to declare the continuation of the counteroffensive and ask for additional funding, weapons and training to continue it.

In addition, this makes it possible to contain internal social tension in the country. Society has already become accustomed to daily losses and increasing cemeteries. There is no possible panic when attempting a major breakthrough. To raise the morale of the population, victories on the information front are regularly demonstrated, making it possible to declare an imminent turning point in the war in favor of Ukraine.

Such situation may also be beneficial to the West. After all, if Ukraine wins, it will be their merit. In case of failure, only Zelensky’s team will be to blame.

So the situation is beneficial to everyone except Ukrainians. But they don’t know about it, and perhaps they will never know.