KYIV, Ukraine — President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that Ukraine needs more time to start a counter-offensive against Russia because it does not yet have enough military equipment from Western supporters, despite officials Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly described the impending attack.
In terms of personnel and motivation, Ukrainian forces are ready for the operation, Zelensky said in an interview. broadcast by BBC on Thursdaybut they are still waiting for some promised weapons from the West, namely armored vehicles.
“We can move forward, and I think we will,” he said. “But we will lose a lot of people. I think that is unacceptable. So we need to wait. We still need a little more time.”
Ukrainian political and military analysts say Mr Zelensky was right about the ongoing shortfalls ahead of an operation that Ukraine and its supporters hope will be a turning point in the war. But they also point to other possible motives behind his remarks: pressuring allies to increase deliveries, lowering expectations of a counterattack and causing confusion. Kremlin on Kiev’s intentions.
For months, Ukraine’s political and military leaders have signaled that they are preparing a major effort to recapture territory held by Russia since the country’s invasion last year, even though they did not say exactly when or where the blow would take place. Some analysts have predicted that the counter-offensive will focus on the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in southern Ukraine, rather than on the eastern Donbas region where the heaviest fighting has raged in months.
A Russian military leader announced on Thursday that the Ukrainian counter-offensive was underway.
Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, head of Wagner’s private militia, says it’s happening in the Donbas and in the center was the city of Bakhmut, where his mercenaries launched a weary attack that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people. IN an audio message posted on Telegram by his press service, he dismissed Mr. Zelensky’s comments as a ruse.
“The counterattack is going on at full speed, adding that it will start in the Bakhmut area and then move on to the Zaporizhzhia area,” he said. “Those units that have undergone the necessary training, have received weapons, equipment, tanks and everything else – they are fully engaged,” he said of the Ukrainians.
Ministry of Defense of Russia said in a statement it repelled some Ukrainian “force reconnaissance” operations in the east, but described these actions in conventional terms and denied that there had been any breakthrough.
Ukrainian forces gained an advantage around Bakhmut this week for the first time since March, commanders on both sides said, but it was not clear if those reflected opportunistic attacks. small scale or the beginning of something bigger.
Mr. Prigozhin has previously gone ahead of Russian officials in acknowledging what is happening on the battlefield, but he has also made questionable claims during his campaign to get more supplies from an indicator set. Russian military commander whom he harshly criticized.
A Russian military blogger, Oleksandr Simonov, who often got his hands on Wagner fighters in Ukraine, Posted on Thursday that they had advanced further inside the city of Bakhmut, but the Ukrainian army forced the Russian army to retreat at two points north of the city. On the third day, the Russians ceded a few square miles southwest of the city.
Taras Chmut, head of Come Back Alive, a charity that supplies military supplies to the Ukrainian army, said whatever Zelensky’s intentions were, his view of being unprepared was correct. Although tens of billions of dollars in weapons have been delivered, and more are on the way, the Ukrainian military is still short of including artillery shells, armored vehicles and air defense systems, he said.
Mr Chmut, a former army officer, said: “The money we have collected in recent months is still not enough for a successful counterattack. However, he added, “It is up to the senior military commander to decide whether to take the risk or not.”
Maria Zolkina, head of regional security and conflict studies at Kyiv-based Democratic Initiatives, said Zelensky’s interview “was part of a political statement aimed at prompting Western partners to accelerate those supplies.” She said he was also probably looking to assuage any high hopes in case the counterattack “did not turn out as expected.”
However, Zolkina added: “I do not rule out that it was an information ploy because Ukraine is trying to hide its preparations.”
Shashank Joshi, defense editor of The Economist, put it more bluntly: “Of course this is what you would say if the counter-offensive was about to begin,” he said. wrote on Twitter,
Ms Zolkina said Kyiv was concerned that if the campaign did not bring great benefits, there could be pressure from some Western partners to negotiate an end to the war or accept reduced aid.
On Thursday, Britain’s Defense Secretary, Ben Wallace, told Parliament the government would supply Ukraine with air-launched cruise missiles that could strike at ranges of up to 155 miles. The Storm Shadow missile, with its 990-pound explosive warhead, will allow Ukraine to launch powerful strikes against targets in Crimea, a peninsula that Russia illegally seized in 2014.
“Ukraine has the right to defend itself,” Wallace said. “The use of Storm Shadow will allow Ukraine to repel Russian forces stationed in Ukraine’s sovereign territory.”
The Biden administration has so far refused to send such long-range weapons to Ukraine, wary of provoking some sort of escalation by Russia. But the war has weakened the resistance of the White House, which has agreed to send sophisticated weapons that were previously apparently banned, such as the Patriot air defense system and the HIMARS missile launcher.
Ben Hodges, a retired lieutenant general who served as commander of the US Army in Europe and advocated the supply of long-range weapons to Ukraine, wrote on Twitter that British cruise missiles would pose a threat to Ukraine. threatens Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, based in Sevastopol, Crimea. “This will give Ukraine the ability to make Crimea invulnerable to Russian forces,” he said.
Ukraine’s leaders have emphasized that they intend to retake Crimea, but it may now be more important as a resupply and staging area for Russian operations in southern Ukraine.
If Mr. Zelensky’s comments about waiting to launch the campaign were an attempt to distract, it would fit an information war rife with feints and surprises.
Last fall, the Ukrainian military said it was planning a counterattack in the south, prompting Russia to move its troops south, leaving defenses alone in the Kharkiv region to the northeast. Instead, the Ukrainian military command attacked there, taking the Russians by surprise – as well as many of their own troops – and recapturing a large swath of territory. in a routine.
Just 10 weeks ago, Western arms transfers were still downhill too far on what Ukraine needs for a counterattack, according to classified US military assessments from February and March.
But two weeks ago, NATO’s top military commander, General Christopher G. Cavoli of the US Army, said that Ukraine had that moment. get 98 percent of combat vehicles needed to launch the battle.
Even so, Ukrainian officials regularly say they need better weapons. And in recent days, they have sought to manage the expectations of their own people and their Western allies, saying there may not be a final battle.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the president, said: “It seems like we are in a Hollywood movie where a great battle in Middle-earth begins, and a battle in Gondor will decide it all. “It didn’t happen like that.”
“It’s not a matter of a week or a month,” he said. “This is the question of many events, because one event may be more successful, and the other less successful.”
Carlotta Gall report from Kiev, Shashank in Bengali And Matthew Mpoke Bigg from London, and Lara Jakes from Rome. Oleksandr Chubko reporting contributions from Kiev, and Anatoly Kurmanaev from Berlin.
