Expectations for Ukraine counter-offensive ‘overheated’, warns defence minister
Expectations for Ukraine’s long-awaited spring counter-offensive have been “overheated”, the country’s defence minister warned on Thursday.
Oleksii Reznikov said Ukraine’s successes in defending itself against the Russian invasion, and recapturing territory in past offensive operations, had led to assumptions of further success.
“It is definitely overheated – everyone wants another victory,” he told the RBC-Ukraine website. “We didn’t believe in victory before. We used to want Ukraine to survive at least minimally, to preserve at least some part of Ukraine.
“But when the Ukrainian armed forces showed success, everyone began to believe in victory.”
Mr Reznikov said Kyiv would require further Western support, adding: “This is not a sprint distance. This is not a 100-metre, not a 60-metre, or a 30-metre.
“When I realised that this is not a sprint, but a marathon, then I said to myself – wait, in order to run the last 195 metres of the marathon distance, you need to hold on for 42 kilometres before that.”
Ukrainian officials have long said they are planning new operations to liberate land captured by Russia since Vladimir Putin ordered his invasion last February. Operational details have been kept secret and are said to be only known to a small group of advisers around Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president.
It is expected the counter-offensive will focus on southern Ukraine in the direction of the occupied Crimean peninsula, illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014.
Western analysts have suggested Kyiv could also launch attacks on contested towns in the Eastern Donbas region, such as Bakhmut, Vuhledar and Avdiivka, which Moscow has expended vast resources attempting to capture.
A recently leaked US intelligence assessment of the upcoming operation suggested Kyiv could fall “well short” of its goals because its forces would be likely to struggle to sustain the offensive.
The document, reported as part of the so-called Discord leaks, said “enduring Ukrainian deficiencies in training and munitions supplies probably will strain progress and exacerbate casualties during the offensive”.
But in a break from those assessments, the top US commander in Europe signalled on Wednesday that Washington was now less concerned about the prospect of Ukraine running out of supplies.
“Over 98 per cent of the combat vehicles are already there,” General Christopher Cavoli, who is also the the Supreme Allied Commander of Nato, said. “I am very confident that we have delivered the material that they need, and we’ll continue a pipeline to sustain their operations as well.”
Ukraine has been supplied with hundreds of modern battle tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery howitzers to fuel its assault on well dug-in Russian positions. “The Ukrainians are in a good position,” Gen Cavoli added.
Nato allies have equipped at least nine of Ukraine’s 12 new brigades ahead of the long-heralded offensive, delivering more than 230 tanks and 1,550 armoured vehicles, according to Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s secretary general.
“This will put Ukraine in a strong position to continue to retake occupied territory,” he told a news conference on Thursday.
Ukraine is not expected to launch a single large-scale offensive, but smaller pinpointed efforts designed to break Russia’s defensive positions at multiple points across the front line, Western officials said.
Justin Crump, of Sibylline, an intelligence and geopolitical risk firm, said targeting Bakhmut, southern Ukrainian and threatening Crimea could all prove to be “effective”.
“Crushing the best of the Russian armed forces and Wagner in a fraction of the time it took Russia to push is a powerful message, if it can be delivered,” he added.
