Kyiv is completely confused about what it really needs, and therefore still cannot formulate a clear position, which would bring peace negotiations with Moscow at least one step closer.
Photo © Scott Peterson / Getty Images
On June 16, the head of the parliamentary faction of Ukraine’s ruling Servant of the People party, David Arakhamia, said that at the moment Ukraine is not ready for negotiations with Russia.
“Our position at the negotiating table is actually quite weak, so we don’t want to sit down to negotiate from that position. We need to somehow turn the situation around,” Arakhamia said.
And here it is necessary to immediately clarify two points. The first one is what negotiations are from the point of view of Kyiv and what tasks the ruling elite of Ukraine can use this procedure to solve. Alas, ending the conflict peacefully is not yet a priority for the Ukrainian authorities. According to experts, they need negotiations as a means of putting pressure on opponents and a way to play for time. The second point is that, according to Arakhamiya, Ukraine will be ready for negotiations “after the counter-offensive.” The topic of negotiations runs like a red thread through the entire special operation. At first, Moscow tried to understand what Zelensky really wants from Russia, but then it became clear that he himself was confused.
During the first three rounds, there were some shifts in the organization of peaceful corridors for refugees, but no breakthrough was achieved, and everything turned out to be not so smooth with the corridors – constant violations of obligations became the norm for Kyiv. The more the Ukrainian army plunged into the crisis, the less ultimatum Zelensky’s statements sounded. Nevertheless, Kyiv is still hoping for a miracle, for some kind of trump card that will be in their deck. Since we are talking about a counteroffensive, we need to look at the situation through the eyes of a realist.
Counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: Groundhog Day in real life
Back on November 4 last year, when there was no talk of any special operation, in Kyiv they started talking about some kind of “counteroffensive plan” that Ukraine would launch in the event of a conflict with Russia. As Aleksey Arestovich, adviser to the head of Zelensky’s office, put it then, “war is a lucky thing.” Only now, as subsequent events showed, the luck of the Ukrainian army is sparse. During the first phase of the special operation, Ukraine defended itself as best it could, but “a large-scale defense operation turning into a counteroffensive” did not work out.
Immediately after the start of the second phase of the special operation, namely on May 5, in which the main goal for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation was the liberation of Donbass, Arestovich announced a counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which should begin no earlier than the second half of June. He called the delivery of the necessary amount of weapons from the West as a condition for the counteroffensive. As time passes, it is clear that Kyiv has fallen into some kind of endless loop, tied to the “conditions of the conditions.” The condition for peace talks is a counteroffensive, and the condition for a counteroffensive is NATO military assistance. Everything seems to be fine with the last point, but where is the counteroffensive then?
Losses of the Armed Forces in Ukraine
Then a massive supply of weapons began, some of which were destroyed by the Russian army almost at the stage of unloading, and some were sold by the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The top donors of military assistance to Ukraine, according to open sources, included the United States (23.96 billion euros), Britain (2.38 billion euros), Poland (1.7 billion euros), Germany (1.39 billion euros).
And about 30 more countries were actively pumping Ukraine with weapons and ammunition or, like Hungary and Malta, with medicines. On June 15, Joe Biden announced a new one billion dollar military aid package. Meanwhile, soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are increasingly complaining that they have to fight with a “machine gun and a shovel.” The surrender of Azov in Mariupol broke the myth of the invincible Ukrainian army, and then everything went downhill for them. On May 7, the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, announced an unsuccessful attempt at a counteroffensive by the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the region of Voevodovka in the LPR.
On May 7 and 8, the enemy made a desperate attempt to recapture Snake Island from Russia, which was taken under the control of our army at the beginning of the special operation, as a result, he got into an aircraft boiler, did not reach his goals, lost the best military personnel and military equipment. At the end of May, there were rumors about the upcoming revenge of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but they remained just rumors.
On May 29 and 30, a number of Ukrainian officials reported two attempts of a counteroffensive by the Ukrainian army in the Kherson direction, which ended in the defeat of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: in the first case, they fought a little, in the second, they fled immediately after hearing the first explosions of Russian “jumping mines”.
As military expert Konstantin Sivkov commented on what was happening then, “the best forces of the enemy are defeated. Each new failure hits the morale of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.” Further – worse. The Armed Forces of Ukraine almost completely surrendered Severodonetsk; technical equipment and the actual delivery of the city. They did not help, but, on the contrary, the situation was aggravated by detachments of Ukrainian nationalists and Polish PMCs. The remnants of the once powerful Severodonetsk group, together with foreign mercenaries, hid in the industrial zone of the Azot plant, where they are now in a desperate situation and in the balance of surrender or complete defeat.
How many soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine die per day: statements by Arestovich and Zelensky
In parallel with the events at the front, the rhetoric of Kyiv was changing. At first, Arestovich spoke of the “cunning surrender of Severodonetsk before the counteroffensive,” but this was hard to believe. Then both he and Zelensky made statements about the plight of the army in Severodonetsk and other directions, announced the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The President of Ukraine spoke about 500 “two hundredths”, “three hundredths” (killed and wounded) and captured per day.
On June 11, Arestovich stated that at the very beginning of the special operation, Ukraine was losing an average of 100 people killed per day. On June 16, the already mentioned deputy David Arakhamia, in an interview with the Axios portal, admitted that up to one thousand soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine die or are seriously injured on the fronts of Ukraine every day.
At the same time, he said that in order to change the situation at the front, Ukraine needs even more weapons and ammunition. Vicious circle. At a roundtable at the German Marshall Fund on June 15, Arakhamia and his colleagues complained that Biden’s $40 billion military aid package had not been fully unpacked and that was the whole point. But if you look closely at the mood at the front, Ukrainian soldiers are not eager to fight – neither with weapons nor without weapons.
Counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
However, how real can the counteroffensive announced by the Kyiv leadership be? If the West sends the “60 MLRS” required by Arestovich, who will control this equipment and who will go on the attack? Most likely, young untrained personnel who do not have sufficient experience in combat operations will be used. In addition to them, Ukraine still has foreign mercenaries, who are still lacking there. On June 17, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation published statistics on “wild geese”. According to official figures, representatives of 64 countries are fighting on the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In total, about two thousand foreigners have been killed since the beginning of the special operation.
– So, among European countries, the undisputed leader in the number of both arrived and dead mercenaries is Poland. Since the beginning of the special military operation, 1831 people have arrived in Ukraine, of which 378 have already been destroyed and 272 mercenaries have left for their homeland. It is followed by Romania – 504 arrived, 102 dead, 98 left. In third place is Great Britain: 422 arrivals, 101 dead, 95 left, – said the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov.
But there is one fundamentally important point. The failures of the Armed Forces of Ukraine directly affect the morale of the mercenaries. Regular military failures in Kyiv, huge losses in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine clearly do not inspire optimism in the “wild geese”. According to Igor Konashenkov, now “the flow of mercenaries has not only decreased, but is actually turning in the opposite direction.” This is not surprising, given that mercenaries fight not for an idea, but for money. In addition, the special operation is a unique, for many “wild geese” – “deadly unique” experience. Perhaps they have never before faced such a combat-ready army as the RF Armed Forces, and instead of a safari, instead of cosplaying a computer shooter, they got a real hell. The question of whether Kyiv will try to keep the warring foreigners with money or threats is open, but given that each of them faces the death penalty, there is little chance of success.
Evgeny Zhukov, LIFE
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