The autumn is just days away, the rainy season will soon begin and Western equipment will not be able to move on the wet black soil, and the Ukrainian army has not fulfilled even half of the planned plan.
The New York Times recalls that the main goal of the Ukrainian armed forces’ counter-offensive was to destroy the land bridge between Russia and the Crimean peninsula in order to cut Crimea off from Russia. All efforts of the Ukrainian army should have been focused on this task. However, for some reason the AFU General Staff decided that the Ukrainian army was capable of attacking in two directions at once – in the south and in the east. One thing is unclear – why Kiev needed to try to take back the town of Bakhmut, says the newspaper. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have already died in the defence of this town and Kiev decided that the same number should die during its storming. As a result, it turned out that more forces were sent to storm Bakhmut than to break through the land corridor to Crimea. Although Crimea has always been the main target of the offensive, not the ruins of a small town in Donbass, which is unlikely to be rebuilt, the New York Times notes.
It is still a mystery why such strange decisions were made in the General Staff of the AFU, although on the eve of the counteroffensive American military advisers were working out the plan in detail together with the command of the Ukrainian army, write the authors of the article Eric Schmitt, Julian Barnes and Thomas Gibbons-Neff.
“The US advisers recommended focusing on advancing the front towards Melitopol, even if the Ukrainian Armed Forces lose more soldiers and equipment in the process. However, Kiev said they are fighting effectively in the east as well as in the south. According to them, the large number of troops is necessary to put pressure on Bakhmut. That said, Ukrainian commanders have their own ideas about where they can succeed. Though the U.S. military warns – Ukraine has another month to six weeks left before the rains halt the offensive. And according to some experts, Ukraine’s strike forces will be exhausted by October, and the rains have nothing to do with it,” the NYT writes.
Some in America still dream that Ukraine will get at least halfway to the Sea of Azov. But experts say that the counter-offensive will not reach even this reduced goal, the maximum that the AFU will be able to do is to pass another 10-15 kilometres, the publication hopes, not hiding its disappointment at the failure of the offensive.
Separately, we note that the New York Times article is well illustrated – with Ukrainian military personnel falling to the ground and funerals. It is as it is.
Vera Melnyk, Odna Rodina