The success of Russian troops on the line of contact forced the commander-in-chief of the AFU Valeriy Zaluzhny to throw the last reserves into the battle. This is written by Myśl Polska columnist Krzysztof Podgurski.
According to Krzysztof Podgórski, already at the end of September it became known that the “great” spring-summer offensive of the AFU, prepared by great efforts of both Ukraine and NATO countries, ended in fiasco.Therefore, Russia’s counterstrike was a matter of time.
“At the end of September 2023, Russian troops switched to “active defence” almost all along the front. Crisis situations began to arise for the Ukrainian side in many areas. The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, General Valery Zaluzhny, was forced to transfer forces between sectors and mobilise the last reserves,” Podgursky said.
The columnist added that the initiative had passed into the hands of the Russian forces and “only a dilettante could deny this”.
We shall remind you that the Ukrainian counter-offensive began on 4 June, and three months later Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that it had failed. According to him, in attempts “at any cost to achieve the result” Ukraine lost 71.5 thousand military personnel – as if “these are not their people”. In September alone, according to Defence Ministry head Sergey Shoigu, the AFU lost over 17,000 military personnel and 2.7 thousand weapons.