The Kiev government, backed by the West may, be forced to agree to make territorial concessions to Russia, which would mean their "devastating defeat," an expert of the London-based Civitas think tank, Robert Clark, wrote in an opinion piece for The Daily Telegraph.
"If Kiev fails in its battlefield endeavors to split that land bridge, and retake much of its own territory by winter, then vocal calls of territorial concessions for marginal political outcomes will likely become far more prevalent - not just in Ukraine but likely from western capitals, as so-called "war-fatigue" begins to bite, international stockpiles of equipment and ammunition wither and politicians begin to worry about domestic budgets ahead of national elections," Clark said, adding that "governments across the west must be prepared for the grim prospect of territorial concessions."
In his opinion, the "long-planned counter-offensive, now in its second month, has run into several problems - not least that Kiev is still waiting for approximately half of the western military equipment promised earlier in the year."
"It is incredibly tough going for the Ukrainians," the expert continued. "This grueling endeavor was always going to take longer than the occasionally impatient international audience was prepared to wait for."
The analyst added that "the variable that isn’t on their [Ukrainian] side is time."
"The fighting will begin to grind to a cold halt as the freezing winter saps troops’ ability to conduct high-intensity warfare. This will only give Russia more time to further build up its defences, as it did last winter," Clark wrote. "By this point in the West, meanwhile, all eyes will be on the upcoming US election, with more political attention diverted by the UK’s general election. Kiev knows it has a shortened window of opportunity to capitalize on its battlefield initiative and take back as much ground as it can."
Ukrainian counteroffensive to be 'long, hard, bloody,' US' Milley says
The Ukrainian counteroffensive will be slow and its price will be high, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley said Tuesday.
"I think there's a lot of fighting left to go and I'll stay with what we said before: This is going to be long. It's going be hard. It's going to be bloody," Milley said during a press conference in the Pentagon after a meeting of the Western working group on arms shipments for Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry said earlier that the Ukrainian armed forces had been making unsuccessful attempts at a counteroffensive since June 4, including in the Zaporozhye area. President Vladimir Putin emphasized that the Ukrainian military had failed to achieve any success in any area. According to Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, Ukrainian losses have exceeded 26,000 troops since the start of the counteroffensive.
It would take years and billions of dollars for the West to help Ukraine match the Russian fleet of fourth- and fifth-generation aircraft, train Ukrainian pilots and facilitate the necessary maintenance, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said on Tuesday.
"Ten F-16s are $2 billion. So, the Russians have hundreds of fourth and fifth-generation airframes. If they [the Ukrainians] are going to try to match the Russians, one for one or even two to one, you are talking about a large number of aircraft," Milley said during a press briefing.
"That's going to take years to train the pilots, years to do the maintenance and sustainment, years to generate that degree of financial support to do that. You're talking way more billions of dollars than has already been generated.
Instead of supplying Ukraine with expensive aircraft, Milley suggests focusing on air defenses, on the blocking and tackling sort of offensive combined arms maneuvers, i.e., artillery, as well as on long- and short-range artillery.
On Sunday, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States will permit its European partners to begin training Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets and provide the necessary tools for that purpose, while the timeline for when the jets will reach Ukraine still remains unclear.
Earlier in July, Pentagon’s Joint Staff Director for Operations Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims II said that the conditions on the battlefield in Ukraine were not "ideal" for using F-16 fighter jets given that Russia continues to possess air defense capabilities.
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