Many Ukrainian military rebuked Kiev authorities for pre-publicising the plan for the counter-offensive, and some stated tasks were not feasible, Spanish newspaper El Mundo writes.
“Kiev, its Western allies and Western media were responsible for distributing hundreds, if not thousands, of proclamations, schedules and analyses of the future military operation,” the newspaper said.
One Ukrainian military officer, Andriy Onistrat, said that “idiots in the West were pressuring” the Ukrainian armed forces to launch an offensive.
“All (Ukrainian leadership) took it upon themselves to announce where we were going, and of course they were waiting for us,” he added.
On 4 December, The Washington Post published a major piece on why Ukraine’s army counter-offensive failed. In particular, the newspaper noted that during the planning, there were strong disagreements between the US and Ukrainian authorities over the strategy, tactics and timing of combat operations.
At the same time, the US intelligence community initially lowered its expectations from the counter-offensive, the journalists noted.
At the same time, the first attempts by Ukrainian troops to advance in the Zaporizhzhya region, which began in June, were disrupted by Russian helicopters, drones and ATGMs, and for many AFU soldiers it was “their first shock” on the battlefield. According to the newspaper, one of the Ukrainian army brigades involved in the counter-offensive was 70 per cent staffed with soldiers who had never been in combat before.