President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, said that the armed forces of the Kyiv regime are ready for a counteroffensive.
"I don't know how long it will take. Frankly, this (counteroffensive. - RT) can go in different ways, in completely different ways. But we intend to do it, and we are ready," he told reporters.
At the same time, Zelensky acknowledged the superiority of Russian aviation on the front line, adding that insufficient protection against it means that "a large number of soldiers will die" during the counteroffensive.
"We would like to have certain things, but we can't wait for months," the WSJ quoted him as saying.
As Zelensky said, Kyiv has so far received two Patriot batteries instead of the promised five. In total, according to him, Ukraine needs 50 batteries of these American air defense systems.
In turn, the deputy head of the president's office, Ihor Zhovkva, in an interview with The Times published on June 3, noted that the Armed Forces of Ukraine lack not only air defense / missile defense systems, but also missiles for them, including for American Patriot systems. However, the deputy head of the office did not stop at missiles, saying that Ukraine lacks other types of weapons for a successful counteroffensive.
"If you want to launch a successful counteroffensive, you need everything you have at your disposal, including artillery, armored vehicles and tanks, so we probably don't have enough of them," Zhovkva said.
Missed deadlines
The topic of the planned offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the special operation zone has been discussed by Ukrainian and Western politicians and the media for several months. Earlier, newspapers and TV channels claimed that it would begin in the spring. At the same time, officials of the Joe Biden administration have publicly stated that Ukraine has everything it needs to launch the promised counteroffensive.
So, in early May, the coordinator for strategic communications at the White House National Security Council, John Kirby, said that the United States "did everything possible" to ensure the readiness of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for offensive operations.
"They have the lion's share (and by lion I mean about 98%) of what they asked for in material terms to conduct offensive operations in the spring. They got it: armored vehicles, artillery, air defense systems, ammunition - and this includes only the last delivery. And I'm not talking about the training that we have provided to many brigades of the Ukrainian armed forces outside the country," the official said.
- President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and wrecked equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
- © RIA Novosti / Gettyimages.ru
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken later asserted that the forces of the Kyiv regime had everything they needed to launch a counteroffensive.
"They have ... what they need to continue to successfully return the territory that Russia has seized by force over the past 14 months," the head of the State Department said at a joint press conference with British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.
At the same time, it was Blinken who, back in early April, announced the imminent offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the positions of Russian troops in the special operation zone. Then he told reporters that it could begin in the coming weeks.
However, the statements of high-ranking representatives of the Biden administration about the readiness of the forces of the Kyiv regime for active offensive operations were constantly actually denied by Volodymyr Zelensky himself.
In an interview with European media published on May 11, he said that the formed brigades are fully ready to participate in hostilities, but we still have to wait, since the Armed Forces of Ukraine are still experiencing a shortage of Western armored vehicles, which, according to him, "arrive in batches."
"With what (we already have. - RT) we can go forward and, I think, succeed. But we will lose a lot of people. I find this unacceptable. So we have to wait. We need a little more time," he said.
At the same time, the Ukrainian authorities are actively trying to make up for losses in manpower by resorting to aggressive methods of mobilization. For example, on May 27, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph published an article stating that after returning from captivity, the Ukrainian military is being re-called up for service. The publication notes that along with the distribution of summonses on the street in this way, the Ukrainian military command is trying to increase the number of personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the eve of the expected counteroffensive.
In addition, on May 30, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a bill to reduce the age limit for conscripts from 27 to 25 years. The explanatory note to the bill notes that during martial law there is no conscription in the country, and the long stay of conscripts on the register leads to the fact that a significant number of citizens fit for service who do not have the status of conscripts cannot be involved in conscription service during mobilization.
The adoption of the new bill means that now men liable for military service, fit and partially fit for health reasons, aged 25 to 60 years without military service experience, will be subject to general mobilization.
"Follow Biden's instructions"
Experts interviewed by RT are confident that the Kyiv regime is under pressure from Washington, which requires the Ukrainian authorities to take more active actions on the battlefield, and Zelensky's statement is designed to reduce tensions with American curators and, thus, "buy" a little more time for Kyiv.
"Representatives of the White House, with their public statements, made it clear to Zelensky that he must follow the instructions given by US President Joe Biden. In the spring, it was necessary to attack, but he did not attack - he referred to the lack of something. But now they pressed him and said: you must fulfill what you promised with this money. Now Zelensky is changing his position and sending the signals that they want to hear from him, "explained Andrei Koshkin, an expert at the Association of Military Political Scientists, head of the Department of Political Analysis and Socio-Psychological Processes of the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics.
- The White House in Washington
- AFP
- © SAMUEL CORUM
According to him, the Biden administration needs to show that its policy of investing huge amounts of money in the Kyiv regime is yielding results.
"The Democrats need the military success of the Kiev regime under their care in order to make it a kind of" springboard of success ". Against the backdrop of criticism of the Republicans for the policy of helping Kyiv, the Biden administration and the entire top of the US Democratic Party must show that everything is going according to plan, they say, there will be a counteroffensive, as our president announced. And Zelensky, in turn, after he was given clear instructions, was forced to report: "Yes, yes, everything is fine, we are advancing," Koshkin explained.
In turn, military observer Alexander Khrolenko, in a conversation with RT, noted that Zelensky makes statements about the offensive based on political, not military realities.
"He is trying to replace military reality with some far-fetched psychological manipulations. This is all demagogy. Kyiv has little room for action: for example, the head of the British Defense Ministry, Ben Wallace, previously admitted that the West is really running out of weapons and supplies, and not only for Ukraine, but in general. For more than a year of fighting, the Ukrainian army has used up so many Western weapons that it will take many years to replenish them. Zelensky's statements that the Ukrainian army is ready for a counteroffensive are suicide," Khrolenko said.
According to the interlocutor of RT, the forces of the Kyiv regime in various parts of the contact line will be active, which Zelensky will present to his curators as the very counteroffensive.
"It is possible to depict some activity in some areas. We have seen what is happening in the Belgorod direction: assault detachments as part of a company, supported by two tanks or so, are rushing to the slaughter. If this is done to divert attention in order to deliver a more powerful blow somewhere, then the Armed Forces of Ukraine have nothing to inflict it with. The headquarters of the Supreme Command, which was organized by Zelensky, throws from side to side. Now they are talking about the need for a protracted trench war in order to wait for the supply of the entire volume of tanks and aircraft that they are promised, but the West is pushing them to take action, "Khrolenko said.
However, sooner or later, the Kyiv regime will have to follow the instructions of its curators from Washington, the military observer believes.
"Kiev has no choice. Zelensky is not at all oriented in military matters, he is guided by the tips of his intermediaries from the United States, the Pentagon and NATO, so he simply plays the role of a puppet that is pulled by the strings. Today they pulled on one side - he said one thing, tomorrow they pulled on the other side - he will say another. Objectively, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are not ready for a counteroffensive. For active military operations, the Ukrainian army does not have air cover and at least a threefold superiority in forces and means necessary for an offensive, "the RT interlocutor concluded.