Ukraine’s previous attempt at beating Russia on the battlefield has been a total disaster and Kiev should not expect anything different the next time, a highly positioned official at the Russian Ministry of Defense told reporters on Thursday.
In an exclusive interview published by German newspaper Bild earlier this week, Zelensky revealed that Ukraine has “a plan for a counteroffensive” but would need more weapons and supplies from its Western backers.
“I would remind you that the implementation of the previous counteroffensive plan in 2023, which Commander-in-Chief Zelensky delicately dubbed ‘not successful’, resulted in the death and serious injury of more than 166,000 members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as the loss of 789 tanks, 2,400 other armored vehicles and 132 aircraft,” the MOD official said.
With Ukrainians unwilling to volunteer for the cause of “Zelensky’s madness,” Kiev has updated its mobilization rules to recruit “new cannon fodder,” the official added.
However, the Ukrainian leader apparently expects the West to arm and equip hundreds of thousands of newly mobilized troops, as Ukraine itself has long run out of weapons, equipment and even ammunition, the official pointed out. Meanwhile, the West’s own cupboard is bare and the US and its allies are already “stripping their own troops naked” to supply Ukraine.
Thanks to such an approach to military planning, “there is no doubt that the implementation of Zelensky’s new plan for a counter-offensive will end in complete disaster for Ukraine, the final defeat of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and the beginning of the path to peace on Russian terms,” the official said.
NATO members began arming Ukraine even before the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022, starting with anti-tank missiles and later sending Soviet-made tanks, artillery and fighter jets. When Kiev began running out of those as well, the US and its allies sent their own guns, armored fighting vehicles and even main battle tanks such as the Leopard 2 and Abrams. All along, however, they have insisted that this does not make them a party to the conflict.
American and British generals helped plan Ukraine’s grand counteroffensive last summer, believing that Western-made weapons would enable Kiev’s troops to punch through Russian defenses. “Nothing went as planned,” according to a Washington Post analysis of the operation, published in December. After just four days, the Ukrainian command abandoned the Western strategy and tried using its own tactics, to just as little effect.
Zelensky has maintained that he can’t negotiate with Russia as long as President Vladimir Putin remains in power and won’t accept any settlement that does not include the full restoration of Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders.
Moscow has repeatedly vowed that all of the objectives of its military operation will be achieved, including the full demilitarization and “denazification” of Ukraine and ensuring it never joins a military alliance hostile to Russia.
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