Ukraine and the West prepare for a longer war

Ukraine The US and the West are preparing for a war that may last several months or even years, while more military assistance arrives in the country and training begins for Ukrainian soldiers in handling the new weapons in order to be able to resist attacks better and longer. russians.

“Of course, all Ukrainians want to win in the near future, and we don’t even want to think about a long-term scenario that could last for years. Unfortunately, world experience shows that there have been few wars that ended in a few weeks or months,” Ukraine’s chief negotiator David Arahamiya said.

He explained that the Institute for Strategic Studies is currently developing all the scenarios for the duration of the war and plans are being prepared to adapt them to the different possibilities.

MONTHS OR YEARS

There are more and more voices, including in the West, who believe that the war will drag on or become another long-term stalled conflict, as has happened during the eight years of armed conflict between the Ukrainian Army and pro-Russian militias in Donbas. .

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recently stated that the war could last “months and possibly years”.

On Thursday, US President Joe Biden asked his country’s Congress for 33 billion dollars in additional aid for Ukraine, of which more than 20 billion will be military assistance to defend itself from Russia, given the possibility of a long war.

A senior White House official said US assistance should be sufficient for the “next five months of this war.”

SLOW PROGRESS ON THE GROUND

And it is that on the ground, Russia advances only slowly in its purpose of taking all of Donbas and southern Ukraine to create the desired land corridor between the east and the annexed Crimean peninsula.

Russia has changed tactics after the failure of its offensive in the north and northeast of the country, resorting heavily to artillery fire along the entire front line against Ukrainian positions to prevent the regrouping of Ukrainian troops and safeguard its lines of defense. supply and communications.

Russian forces have made several tactical gains in Donetsk and Lugansk, but progress is “limited” west of Severodonetsk in the Lugansk region and remains stalled south of Izium in Kharkov, the Russian military said today in its report. Institute for the Study of War.

Russia has not yet managed to encircle the Ukrainian troops as they try to descend from Izium to the east, southeast and southwest through Liman, Sloviansk and Barvinkove to reach Kramatorsk, the main military base of the Ukrainian Army in Donetsk.

Nor have they managed to create a pincer from the south, despite having sent forces from Mariupol, which Russia considers controlled except for the redoubt of resistance that remains in the Azovstal steel mill.

As British intelligence indicated today, Russia still has tactical coordination problems.

A senior Pentagon official said on Friday that Russia wishes it had made “a lot more progress” at this point in the armed conflict.

“They are behind the schedule” established, he said.

“We certainly believe that the conditions are being set for a much longer confrontation in Donbas,” he said, given both sides’ familiarity with the terrain, long-range fires and propensity to use mechanized maneuvers.

TIME TO TRAIN ON NEW WEAPONS

All this gives Ukraine some time so that its soldiers can become familiar with the use of the new weapons that arrive from various Western countries.

But not too long. “Russian troops are gradually increasing the intensity of their offensive in the east in all directions,” Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said today.

US Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby announced Friday that his country has begun training the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the use of US weapons at three locations outside Ukraine, including Germany.

Currently a second class of about 50 soldiers participates in the training of the M777 Howitzer 155-millimeter howitzer, other soldiers in groups of 20 learn to operate the M113 troop transport vehicle and 75 are trained in the use of the mobile radar system Q -64.

According to the senior US official, just over 60% of the 90 Howitzers are already in Ukraine and 155-millimeter artillery ammunition also continues to arrive in that country.

In the next few hours there will be more than a dozen flights from the US with Howitzers, more 155mm ammunition, some Phoenix Ghost tactical drones and radars.

In the last day there were almost 20 flights from seven different countries with military supplies for Ukraine, according to the Pentagon.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last night that Russia does not consider that it is at war with NATO in Ukraine, but the Alliance does seem to be, among other things for sending weapons to that country.

Any supply of weapons to the territory of Ukraine is a “legitimate objective” of the Russian Army, he warned again.

Russia is therefore aggressively attacking Ukrainian arms and ammunition depots. In the last few hours, it destroyed a score of rocket, artillery and ammunition depots, according to what the Ministry of Defense said today.

Source: Elcomercio

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