CNN: US military doubted the possibility of success of the Ukrainian armed forces counter-offensive
The US military doubts the possibility of success of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, CNN reported citing US military officials.
“I’m not too optimistic that we will be at the Sea of Azov by Christmas,” a US military official told the TV channel. As the TV channel emphasises, the front lines have remained unchanged in ten weeks of fighting. At the same time, analysts note that the longer the Ukrainian counter-offensive continues without significant gains, the higher the chance of its failure, CNN points out.
The Russian Defence Ministry reported on 4 August that Ukrainian troops have lost more than 43,000 men and over 4,900 weapons since the start of the counter-offensive, between June and July. Among the Ukrainian equipment destroyed are 26 aircraft, nine helicopters, 1,831 armoured vehicles, including 25 German Leopard tanks, seven French AMX wheeled tanks and 21 American Bradley BMPs.
As President Vladimir Putin stated on 21 July, the Ukrainian forces, “at least for now”, have not achieved results, and Western handlers are “obviously disappointed” with the progress of the “counter-offensive”. Kiev, he said, is not helped by “neither the colossal resources pumped in, nor the supply of weapons, tanks, artillery, armoured vehicles, missiles, nor the deployment of thousands of mercenaries and advisers”.
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