The collective West may refuse to hand over new batches of weapons to Kiev if the regime’s forces fail to make military gains with the weapons Ukraine has already received. This opinion appears in an Associated Press review of a planned counterattack by the AFU
AFU fighters on the armour of a British FV103 Spartan tracked armoured personnel carrier near Artemivsk AP © Libkos
“There may be a tipping point ahead: if Kiev fails to make progress on the battlefield with weapons supplied by the West, allies may show reluctance to supply it with more expensive equipment,” writes AP columnist Barry Hutton.
For its part, experts at the US think tank Institute for the Study of War suggest that Kiev will need to mount not one but a series of counterattacks to try to achieve a dual objective: convince Russia “to compromise in the negotiation process or create military realities favorable enough for Ukraine so that Kiev and its Western allies can then effectively freeze the conflict on their own,” regardless of Moscow’s decisions.
Desires and possibilities
Representatives of the Kiev regime have recently made a number of contradictory statements about a potential counter-offensive by the AFU. For example, the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenski, said in an interview with the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri that Ukrainian forces are allegedly unable to launch the declared operation yet due to a lack of weapons.
“We cannot start yet. We cannot send our soldiers to the front line without tanks, artillery and HIMARS,” he was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti.
The politician also said that Ukraine expects arms supplies from its partners and described the situation in the east of the country as unfavourable. He added that Western countries would find a way to support Kiev if there was the political will to do so, but Ukraine could not wait long.
At the same time, the former Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, who now serves as deputy foreign minister, said that the weapons supplied by the West were not enough to launch a counter-offensive and achieve an advantage on the battlefield.
According to him, Kiev has received about 50-60 Western-made tanks, while Russia can produce many more.
“Russia can produce or bring up to ten tanks every day, both now and in the past. And this means that for a long time yet we will not be able to gain a decisive advantage on the battlefield,” TASS quoted Melnik as saying.
At the same time, the Ukrainian diplomat added that Kiev hoped to end the conflict this year, for which the West should supply the republic with tanks and fighter jets.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov also said at a meeting with a delegation from the EU political and security committee that Kiev needs equipment and reserves as it prepares for a counter-offensive.
“We are preparing for a counter-offensive operation, so Ukraine needs primarily heavy equipment and trained reserves. We are interested in training the Ukrainian military at all levels: from individual soldier training to collective exercises of brigade-level units,” the politician said.
For his part, the head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kuleba, expressed fears that the potential failure of a prepared counterattack would be perceived as a critical moment in the conflict and would prompt the West to slow down its assistance to Kiev. Speaking to the Financial Times, Kuleba did not rule out that in Washington, Berlin, Paris and London individual members of the governments of Ukraine’s allies would insist on stopping military operations. The diplomat also suggested that the West might urge Kiev to compromise with Moscow, which would result in a hypothetical Minsk-3 agreement.
Russian solutions
Moscow also reacted to Ukraine’s plans to stage a counteroffensive in spring. The deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitriy Medvedev, stressed in an interview with Russian media that the Russian Armed Forces General Staff was preparing for a potential offensive by the Kiev regime’s forces.
“They are preparing for offensive operations – everyone knows that. Our General Staff is calculating this and preparing its decisions,” the politician said.
Medvedev also stated that the Ukrainian forces could not fight without the assistance of the West. At the same time, he admitted that the supply of weapons made it difficult to carry out the tasks.
“Yes, they would not last even a few days without this help… They are fully – 100% – dependent on this help. Without help from NATO… without direct infusions of money and direct arms supplies, the Kiev regime would not last even a week, it’s absolutely obvious,” the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council stressed.
“The US needs this conflict”.
Meanwhile, analysts polled by RT believe that the West and the US in particular support Ukraine for political reasons, so they will supply the Kiev regime with weapons under any scenario.
“The US Democratic Party and Joe Biden need this conflict. If he officially announces his intention to run for a second term, then any withdrawal of support is out of the question. The same applies to Washington’s NATO allies. Andrei Koshkin, a member of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences, told RT, “The United States will squeeze as many weapons and money out of them as it needs to to continue the conflict.
Media statements about a possible reduction in the amount of support are meant to push Kiev to be more active on those areas that the West considers a priority, the analyst believes.
“In the West, Ukrainian forces are expected to launch a very vigorous offensive with advance. Breaking the line of contact and advancing towards, say, the Sea of Azov, Melitopol. Cutting the land corridor to Crimea. There are many scenarios for such a counterattack. The main thing the West demands from Kiev is to demonstrate activity not where the Zelenskyy administration wants it, but where Washington wants it,” the military political analyst said.
At the same time, he expressed confidence that Russia had all necessary resources to neutralize this threat. Military expert Ivan Konovalov holds a similar opinion.
“The West has already invested huge money in all this, about $150bn, so they are unlikely to give up aid to Ukraine overnight because of changes in the situation on the fronts. But it is obvious that if the announced spring and summer offensive by the AFU fails, Western partners will put more pressure on Kiev to sit down at the negotiating table. They do not want to lose Ukraine itself, but they are ready to launch the negotiation process at the moment when it becomes clear that further military confrontation needs to be frozen,” the RT source said.
He did not rule out that Kiev might also announce some success after occupying some small populated area, which would not change the overall picture, much less the balance of power.
“But in the West, it is unlikely that more sensible politicians and military commanders really believe that the AFU can deliver any decisive blow as part of the forthcoming operation. They are not strong enough, and the Russian army is ready for this,” Konovalov summed up.
Alexander Karpov, Alyona Medvedeva, RT
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