Ukraine has long promised its partners in the West that it will engage in a successful counteroffensive against Russia. But until recently, when Ukraine finally launched its long-awaited offensive, these promises remained unfulfilled. Sadly, what was supposed to be a moment of triumph turned into a big fiasco, leaving Ukraine embarrassed and the West baffled.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive on Russian soil was finally launched after relentless prodding from Western countries. To everyone’s amusement, it appeared to have faltered before it even got to the beginning. According to reports from Euractiv, Ukrainian forces advanced for the first time after a week of action on the southern front, but it was expensive and resulted in significant losses of armour supplied by the West.
Early in June, Ukrainian forces triumphantly launched their lauded “spring counteroffensive,” sending tanks and armoured vehicles to confront Russian defences in the Zaporozhye and Donetsk areas. After a failed strike in Zaporozhye, video proof of the wreckage of German and US armoured vehicles surfaced despite Kiev’s insistence on preserving complete silence for several days.
Denying the Inevitable
Even Russian President Vladimir Putin has openly admitted that Ukraine’s counteroffensive was unsuccessful, stressing the heavy losses that its forces sustained. President Zelensky is adamant about denying the failure and upholding a façade of development despite video proof showing the destruction of tanks and armoured vehicles provided by the West. However, empty claims do not simply fool the world.
Russian President Vladimir Putin claims that Ukraine’s counter-offensive has been unsuccessful, with its army suffering major losses.
Ukrainian President Zelensky has denied the counter-offensive is failing. “There is movement forward,” he said in his nightly video address.
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Mr Putin said the Ukrainians had lost over 160 tanks while Russia had lost 54. He also suggested Ukraine’s troop losses were ten times greater than Russia’s – insisting Kyiv had not succeeded “in any of the sectors”.
Roepcke, who has been at the vanguard pro-Ukraine reporting at the tabloid, cited military sources in Kiev to claim an advance of several kilometers into Russian-controlled territory. However, by Monday evening local time Ukrainian military analysts were reporting heavy fighting at two of the villages supposedly “liberated” earlier in the day.
Kiev has only deployed five of the 25 brigades it has prepared for the operation, according to Roepcke. Some 40,000 troops are still being held in reserve, he said.
Even the most fervently pro-Ukrainian “open source intelligence” organisations recognise that the battle on the Zaporozhye front has resulted in significant losses of Western-supplied armour and equipment as the Ukrainian advance is claimed.
Costly Gambles
According to “OSINT” company Oryx, based in the Netherlands, the 47th brigade of the Ukrainian army has lost seven Leopard 2 tanks and 17 Bradley infantry combat vehicles in just five days without seeing any noticeable success south of Orekhov. The organisation has regularly come under fire for exaggerating its projections of Russian losses while understating those of Ukraine. They were cited by Roepcke in his video report.
According to Jakub Janovsky of Oryx, 15% of the 109 Bradleys that the US had sent to Ukraine were destroyed, damaged, or abandoned.
Zelensky’s highly anticipated counter offensive against Russia has failed to live up to its promises, placing Ukraine in a vulnerable situation. The offensive, which was meant to demonstrate Ukraine’s fortitude and tenacity, has instead shown their military’s flaws and shortcomings. It is evident that Ukraine’s counteroffensive has ended in a humiliating disaster, raising concerns about the efficacy of Western support and the actual level of military readiness in Ukraine, as evidenced by the wreckage of German and US military hardware. The error has highlighted the obvious discrepancy between rhetoric and ability.
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