According to reports in the US press, US intelligence believes that Ukraine will not achieve its intended goals during the counter-offensive.
According to The Washington Post, citing a classified US intelligence report, Ukraine will not be able to reach Melitopol and the so-called land bridge with Crimea. This conclusion is based on Russia’s actions in defense of the occupied Ukrainian territories.
The new intelligence assessment is in line with a classified US forecast in February that a shortage of equipment and strength could mean that a counter-offensive will fall short of Ukraine’s goal of cutting land links with Crimea by the end of August.
Melitopol is crucial to the Ukrainian counter-offensive, as it is considered the gateway to Crimea. The city is located at the intersection of two major highways and a railway line that allows Russia to move military personnel and equipment from the peninsula to other occupied territories in southern Ukraine.
Counteroffensive. Russia was well prepared on defense
Ukrainian forces launched a counter-offensive in early June, hoping to repeat the success of last fall’s attack through the Kharkov region.
But in the first week of fighting, Ukraine suffered heavy casualties due to Russia’s well-prepared defenses, despite possessing a range of newly acquired Western equipment, including US Bradley armored vehicles, German Leopard 2 tanks and specialized mine-clearing vehicles.
The war games run jointly by American, British and Ukrainian forces assumed such casualties while expecting Kiev to accept casualties as the price of breaching Russia’s main line of defense.
Rob Lee, a military analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, believes that the road to Melitopol is extremely complicated and it will be difficult to recapture even closer cities like Tokmak.
“Russia has three main lines of defense there. The question is not just whether Ukraine can break one or two, but whether it can break all three and have enough troops at its disposal to accomplish something more important, such as capturing Tokmak, the expert said.
Continued US aid to Ukraine threatened?
According to WaPo’s findings, the bleak outlook some Republicans and Democrats in the Capitol have been briefed on has already led to backlash in closed-door meetings.
Some Republicans are now opposing US President Joe Biden’s request for $20.6 billion in additional aid to Ukraine, given the lackluster results of the counter-offensive. Other Republicans and, to a lesser extent, aggressive Democrats accuse the government of not sending more powerful weapons to Ukraine sooner.
Source: Do Rzeczy
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
