Ukraine's Unity Is Crumbling Amid Serious Military Losses

Ukraine's unity is crumbling amid serious military losses in the Donbass and Zelensky is feeling the heat

RT

 Vladislav Ugolniy

Ukrainians appear to be losing unity amid military defeats in the Donbass and the economic crisis in the rest of the country. The surge of patriotism that arose when the Russian army was close to Kiev appears now, in the last days of May, to have been exhausted. Along with it, the national consensus that saw all political groups rallying behind the Ukrainian army, rather than struggling against President Volodomyr Zelensky seems to have disappeared.

Now, the Western-backed leader looks to be in big trouble. 

Meanwhile, foreign aid was flowing in, but it did not bring relief to Ukraine. It proved effective only in supporting refugees in countries free from Ukraine's corruption and cronyism. As for the military component, by the end of May, it turned out that the requested artillery and air defense systems were not enough to defeat Russia, and it was necessary to boost the army’s ranks to one million. 

This increase was to be carried out through the mobilization and transfer of territorial defense detachments to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In the face of the economic crisis, even more Ukrainian men were to be sent to the front line.

As a result, the Kiev government has been detaining men on the streets of the cities it controls and serving them with draft notices. Meanwhile, Western Ukrainian territorial defense units that initially wanted weapons to protect their villages in the Carpathians have found themselves, instead, under Russian aviation and artillery in the eastern Donbass.  

That is how belief in a speedy victory disappeared from Ukrainian society. Alexey Arestovich, a top adviser to the office of the President, who has somehow become the main military expert in Ukraine, as well as military bloggers associated with the nationalist Azov unit, are already talking about a difficult June and July. Even Zelensky himself has lost his optimism. What is the reason for this?

Since the second half of April, the Russian army has concentrated on several objectives:  

1. Expanding its foothold around Izium and cutting off Slaviansk 

2. Conducting an offensive from Kupiansk along the Oskol Reservoir to Sviatogorsk and Liman 

3. Liberating the Rubezhnoye-Severodonetsk-Lisichansk area 

4. Breaking through the fortified defense formations in the Popasnaya area to enter the operational theater 

5. Breaking through the fortified defense formations in the area of Avdeevka and its surroundings 

6. Establishing control over Mariupol 

By the end of May, most of these tasks had been completed. The Ukrainian army put up the greatest resistance in the area around Izium, thanks to which the front has been kept at a distance of 20 kilometers from Slavyansk. However, this was achieved by concentrating most of its reserves between Izium and Slavyansk, which made it impossible to deploy them in other areas. 

A little to the east, the Russian army marched about 80 kilometers along the Oskol Reservoir, liberating the district center Liman on May 27. Now Slavyansk is under threat not only from a strike from the northwest, but also from the northeast, and positions on the left bank of the Seversky Donets River, which is key for this theater of operations, remain only in the Svyatogorsk area and the Kharkov Region. 

But the main Russian victory has taken place to the south, in the port city of Mariupol, which was cut off at the beginning of the war. The most combat-ready and motivated units of the Ukrainian Army and National Guard were surrounded and captured there. First and foremost, we are talking about the neo-Nazi Azov Regiment, whose backbone consisted of far-right militants. In addition to indoctrinating its own members, Azov was the main agent propagating ultra-right ideas in the entire Ukrainian army. 

Ukrainian society has faced serious military defeats, and its motivation to continue the war is exhausted. Ukraine has already given up more than 5,000 Ukrainian military prisoners in Mariupol alone, and a new encirclement is on the way in Severodonetsk and Lisichansk. The Ukrainian government is now faced with a choice: surrender Donbass, save the army, and be faced with a revolt from patriotic forces who consider the surrender of Donbass a betrayal; or fight for Donbass to the last soldier, lose the army, and Donbass a little later, followed by other territories. 

In reality, the situation is dire: By suffering defeats, Zelensky is losing the ability to lie to his Western allies about Ukraine's readiness to fight if only it receivse more heavy weapons. What is the point of Britain or the United States giving Ukraine the most advanced weaponry if it is surrounded and falls into the hands of the Russian army, as has already happened with MANPADS and armored vehicles?