According to a recent report in the New York Times, the Pentagon are no longer pushing the idea that Ukraine’s much vaunted counteroffensive is succeeding. In fact, their tacit admissions are a damning indictment of the entire ‘counteroffensive’ narrative.
Things are so bad now that Ukrainian armed forces have admitted that they will need to ‘pause’ for weeks, or even months, in order to ‘restock and recover’ from a disastrous summer military campaign, according to sources cited.
Their capitulation, combined with the ambiguous statements coming out of Washington and NATO top brass, demonstrate a real schism between the regime in Kiev and its American paymasters who believe Ukraine should be focusing more on the southern regions. According to sources, American officials believe that “the fight in Bakhmut has become something of an obsession for Mr. Zelensky and his military leaders.”
Incredibly, President Volodymyr Zelensky has declared during his latest fundraising tour of Washington – that his Armed Forces would somehow liberate the town of Bakhmut ‘by the end of the year’ – a specious idea which seems directly at odds with US war planners.
Moreover, officials in Washington believe that Ukrainian forces won’t be able to sever Russia’s land bridge from Donbas to Crimea by reaching the Sea of Azov in Russia’s Zaporozhye Region – a reality which alternative media have been reporting since last spring.
According to US officials, conducting any future offensive operations will become even more difficult for the Ukrainian forces “as the ground becomes soft and muddy” in the region, much less successfully penetrate Russia’s well developed lines of defense up and down the line of contact.
The alleged Ukrainian ‘counteroffensive’ was first launched in the spring, before being delayed to the summer, and again appears to have now been rescheduled for the spring of 2024.
In other words: it hasn’t happened, and it’s unlikely to ever happen.
President Vladimir Putin has said earlier this month that Ukraine has lost more than 71,000 troops and over 540 tanks since the beginning of summer of 2023. All of this while clearly failing to achieve any visible results on the battlefield.
In Washington, Zelensky told journalists, “We can’t stop during the winter.”
“My answer is we will do everything not to stop during difficult days in Autumn with not good weather and in winter.”
The harsh reality is that the coming months of wet weather in the autumn, followed by the winter cold – will bring any plans of advancing from their current combat positions to grinding halt. Still, Zelensky is attempting to put a positive spin on this dire that of affairs claiming during his press conference on Thursday to the American media that his troops somehow ‘gained experience fighting in those conditions last year.’
It’s worth noting that his forces did not advance at all last winter, so it’s not altogether clear what Zelensky is talking about here.
When will Washington order Kiev to cut its losses and call for negotiations?
Fact: the longer this conflict lasts, the weaker Ukraine’s position will ultimately become.
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