The evidence is clear that the war in ukraine is over yet the Ukrainians are still pretending that the war is gaining momentum. What seem to be happening is that the Ukrainians are sending their soldiers to the slaughtering field as evidenced by the massacre of their troops and the destruction of their most cherished and much trumpeted Western weapons.The Ukrainians have received the largest amount of weapons and financial support to one country in the entire history of warfare in modern history.
Weapons Supplied
The Czech republic shipped 226 fighting and armoured infantry vehicles, 38 howitzers, 33 multiple rocket launchers, six air defence systems and four helicopters to Ukraine including short-range air-defence systems Strela-10, or SA-13 Gopher.
The UK sent a squadron of Challenger 2 tanks with armoured recovery and repair vehicles. Hundreds more sophisticated missiles including, more than 10,000 anti-tank missiles, Javelin, Brimstone and 5,000 NLAW (Next-generation Light Anti-tank Weapon) missiles
Almost 200 armoured vehicles, six Stormer vehicles fitted with Starstreak launchers, along with hundreds of missiles and maritime Brimstone missiles, plus Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS).
Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) missiles, which can shoot down cruise missiles, for use with the US National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) air defence system.
Nearly 100,000 rounds of artillery ammunition, almost 3,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition, 2,600 anti-structure munitions and 4.5 tonnes of plastic explosives.
More than 28 M109 155mm self-propelled guns, 36 L119 105mm artillery guns and ammunition and more than 50,000 rounds of ammunition supplied.
The US confirmed supplying advanced M777 howitzers,
160 155mm Howitzers and ammunition, 72 105mm Howitzers and ammunition, 47 120mm mortar systems, 10 82mm mortar systems, 67 81mm mortar systems, 58 60mm mortar systems, 152mm, 130mm, 122mm, 120mm, and 25mm ammunition, 38 HIMAR systems, 60,000 122mm Grad rockets, 109 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, 4 Bradley Fire Support Team vehicles, 31 Abrams tanks, 45 T-72B tanks (via the Czech Republic), 90 Stryker armored personnel carriers, 300 M113 armored personnel carriers, 250 M1117 armored security vehicles, 100 armored medical-treatment vehicles, 500 Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, 10,000 Javelin anti-armor systems, 60,000 other anti-armor systems and
munitions,1,600 Stinger anti-aircraft systems, 3,000 TOW missiles, 35,000 grenade launchers and small arms,
with ammunition, 100,000 sets of body armor and helmets.
2,000 Humvees, 354 tactical vehicles, 100 light tactical vehicles, 10 command post vehicles, 30 ammunition support vehicles, 89 heavy fuel tankers and 105 fuel trailers,
5 Patriot air defense batteries and munitions, 8 NASAM systems, 12 Avenger air defense systems, HAWK air defense systems and munitions.
In fact, the entire NATO and Western weapons stores were transferred to Ukraine with many countries complaining of weapons depletion. cnbc.com reported quoting European official:
“I’m greatly concerned. Unless we have new production, which takes months to ramp up, we’re not going to have the ability to supply the Ukrainians,” Des Roches told CNBC.
Europe is running low, too. “The military stocks of most [European NATO] member states have been, I wouldn’t say exhausted, but depleted in a high proportion, because we have been providing a lot of capacity to the Ukrainians,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said earlier this month.
Training of Ukrainian personnel
With Operation Interflex, the UK took on the responsibility of training the Ukrainian armed forces long-term, with the aim of training more than 30,000 new and existing Ukrainian soldiers by the end of 2023.
Alongside the UK, the Netherlands, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Lithuania, New Zealand, and Australia participate in the training programme.
Operation Interflex’s aim was to train around 10,000 new and existing soldiers every 120 days at MOD locations around the UK.
The training included combat skills, basic medical training, patrol tactics, and the laws of armed conflict.
Financial Support for Ukraine
According to cepr.org: a breakdown of aid to Ukraine by donor group.
In total, we trace over €144 billion in government-to-government commitments from 24 January 2022 until 15 January 2023. The US is by far the largest bilateral supporter of Ukraine, having committed €73.18 billion, more than 50% of the total commitments in our database. EU country governments committed a total of €20.1 billion bilaterally, plus €29.92 billion through the European Commission and Council, €3.1 billion via the European Peace Facility, and €2 billion through the EIB. This brings total EU commitments to €55.12 billion. It is remarkable that the US alone has committed considerably more than all EU countries combined, in whose immediate neighbourhood the war is raging.
WHY IS UKRAINE STILL NOT ADVANCING IN ITS COUNTEROFFENSIVE?
At the beginning of the conflict in Feb 2022, negotiations began in Minsk and in Turkey.
There had been several rounds of peace talks to halt Russia’s 2022 invasion in Ukraine and end the Russo-Ukrainian War in an armistice. The first meeting was held four days after the start of the invasion, on 28 February 2022, in Belarus. It concluded without result, with delegations from both sides returning to their capitals for consultations. A second and third round of talks took place on 3 and 7 March 2022, on the Belarus–Ukraine border, in an undisclosed location in the Gomel region of Belarus. A fourth and fifth round of talks were respectively held on 10 and 14 March in Antalya, Turkey.
BORIS JOHNSON’ s VISIT
In April 2022, when negotiations were almost successful and Russia halted its invasion of Kiev by withdrawing its forces to begin the implementation, from nowhere, then British Prime minister Boris Johnson arrived in Kiev on April 9th 2022 to halt the negotiations.
The BBC quoted him as saying “There is absolutely no sign that Russia wants to reach a deal with Ukraine, and it could not be trusted even if one was on offer, Boris Johnson has told the Commons.”
The former prime minister warned against a “land for peace” deal, and said he doubted Volodymyr Zelensky or any Ukrainian government would agree to any such compromise.
He claimed President Putin’s position was getting weaker each week and that Britain must “stay the course”.
This is how the peace talks ended.
They then began supplying the Ukrainians with heavy and long range weapons whilst the Russia had withdrawn its forces from Kiev region and returned them to the Donbas region.
Because, the Western powers had committed themselves to helping ukraine win the war, President Zelensky kept pressuring them to supply more weapons and money to recruit fighters within and outside of Ukraine.
The Western powers committed themselves to train ukrainian forces as mentioned above. More than 50,000 troops were sent abroad to be trained on Western weapons since the Ukrainians were more familiar with Soviet/Russian weapons.
The battles of Mariupol, Severodonesk, Soledar and Bakhmut depleted the Ukrainian weapons and elite troops. All this while, the Western trained forces were comfortably waiting for the counteroffensive which the West was putting much pressure on the Ukrainians to start, to justify the huge spending.
All this while, the Russians were hitting Ukrainian command centers, ammunition depots, supply lines, decision making centres, troop concentration camps, air defense systems, airfields, Tanks etc. This prevented the Ukrainians from beginning their much trumpeted counteroffensive. Every attempt to make a breakthrough on the battlefield to use that to announce a counteroffensive failed. Counteroffensives must always come with some initial shocks and gains with your enemy retreating. None of these happened. With pressure from the West to show some results, President Zelensky was forced to announce the beginning of the counteroffensive on the 10th June with nothing to show, even though President Putin had announced earlier on the 4th June that the Ukrainian Counteroffensive had indeed begun. The counteroffensives mostly started on the Bakhmut, Doneskh, and Zaporozhye fronts.
It was a disaster. The largest counteroffensive was at the Zaporozhye front where German Leopard 2 Tanks, American Bradley Armoured vehicles and several T-72 tanks, mine clearing tanks etc, commandeered by the Western trained forces faced the greatest disaster even before reaching the first Russian lines of defence. The Tanks entered a minefield and what followed was very devastating. A ‘Bradley and Leopard WaterLoo’ had been created and the Ukrainian tanks laid waste, burning, and troops wiped out. The Ukrainians attempted hiding the disaster until Russia published the undeniable videos. This was reminiscent of Napoleon battle of Waterloo in 1815.
Ukrainian forces met “strenuous resistance” from Russian forces and suffered “significant” casualties in men and heavy equipment during the first days of the vast counter-offensive undertaken by Kiev in the region of Zaporizhzhia. This was admitted by two “high-ranking anonymous US officials” quoted by the television station “CNN”.
According to “CNN”, the units of the Russian armed forces, armed with “anti-tank missiles, grenade launchers and mortars”, have mounted a fierce resistance, and thanks also to minefields and artillery support they have “inflicted a heavy cost on vehicles and Ukrainian armored personnel carriers”. According to the officials quoted by the television station, the United States has already estimated huge losses of men and weapon systems of Western manufacture on the Ukrainian side.
This is how Aljazeerah reported the counteroffensive on 11 Jun 2023
“Ukraine has said its troops recaptured three villages from Russian forces in its southeast, the first liberated settlements it reported since launching a counteroffensive.”
“Soldiers hoisted the Ukrainian flag at a bombed-out building in an unverified video published on Sunday by Ukraine’s 68th Jaeger Brigade, which identified the settlement as Blahodatne in the Donetsk region.
A Ukrainian territorial defence unit also posted unverified footage on Telegram of its soldiers holding up their flag in Neskuchne, the village closest to Ukrainian positions in the area.”
“We’re seeing the first results of the counteroffensive actions, localised results,” Valeriy Shershen, spokesperson for Ukraine’s “Tavria” military sector, said on television.”
In his nightly video address, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, praised his troops, but made no reference to the specific areas where the fighting was reported.
“Of course, I am thankful to our soldiers for this day,” Zelenskyy said, referring only to the two main sectors of the fighting in the east and the south.”
As at July 1 not a single Russian defence line had been breached. The Ukrainian village achievements are outside Russian defence lines, and are bombed-out and abandoned villages of no significance to both sides, but had to be used as their counteroffensive achievement to appease their Western powers and backers 😀.
According to the Businessinsider on the 29 June, quoting from the Washingtonpost “Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, told the Washington Post that it “pisses” him off to hear commentary that his counteroffensive operations are moving slower than anticipated. “This is not a show,” Zaluzhny said in the recent interview with the Post, which was published on Friday. “It’s not a show the whole world is watching and betting on or anything. Every day, every meter is given by blood.”
Angered by counteroffensive complaints, Ukraine’s top general says the expected mission is ‘not feasible at all’ with just the weapons his army has now.
He argued that NATO doctrine calls for neutralizing enemy air power and securing air superiority before conducting a ground-offensive, but Ukraine doesn’t have the weapons to compete with Russia in the air.
“The enemy is using a different generation of aviation,” Zaluzhnyi told the Post. “It’s like we’d go on the offensive with bows and arrows now, and everyone would say, ‘Are you crazy?'”
The general also pointed out that in the artillery fight, Ukrainian forces are being outshot ten times over.”👋👋👋
NB. This is the first time since early May that we are hearing of Gen Zaluzhny. He was reported wounded in a Russian missile attack and incapacitated. His anger and concerns at the western expectation is therefore understandable. Welcome back to the battlefield.
