Saturday, April 13, 2024

The Counter-Intuitive-Offensive


The Counter-Intuitive-Offensive
Sputnik


The former television clown that NATO ensured holds every Ukrainian man’s life in his hands, Volodymyr Zelensky, told a German newspaper on Tuesday that he has a plan to turn the tide in Ukraine through a daring 2025 counteroffensive, once he gets more advanced weapons from the West, of course.
If this story sounds familiar, that’s because it is. In February 2023, Ukraine started hyping its spring counteroffensive. High-budget commercials were produced for it. The NAFO online brigade, fresh off ignoring Zelensky’s plea for them to leave their desks and join the fight in reality, were giddy with excitement to live vicariously through what was sure to be the Ukrainian army’s unstoppable string of victories.
“To the Azov Sea!” They proclaimed. “And then Crimea and then Moscow!” They would type out, often in all CAPS when feeling particularly worked up.

“It all started there, and it will end there, with the return of Crimea,” the head of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate, Major General Kyrylo Budanov claimed in March 2023 while hyping the counteroffensive.

The spring counteroffensive was continually delayed and after a few failed attacks that Ukraine assured us definitely were not the counteroffensive, the newly named summer counteroffensive launched in June.
Hundreds of Western-made tanks and armored personnel carriers rushed to the front lines across the battlefield, opening multiple fronts, including outside of Rabotino, Staromlinovka and Artemovsk. It did not go how Zelensky or NATO envisioned.

Months later, after only gaining a few small villages and fewer square miles of land than Russia did during the same period, even Western media had to admit that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had failed completely to meet its goals. Worse, Western countries were embarrassed. Their hyped modern weapons were destroyed in droves, with 789 tanks and 2,400 other armored vehicles left as flaming husks. Fields outside of Rabotinowere nicknamed “Bradley Square” after the number of US-made Bradley Fighting Vehicles that were destroyed there, although it was also the final resting place of numerous German-made Leopard 1 and 2 tanks. Wrecked and twisted metal, they now serve as monuments to the West’s failure.

Before it even ended, NATO’s veneer of invincibility was wiped away, with its weapons and tactics completely defeated by Russian forces. Ultimately, 166,000 Ukrainian soldiers were dead or seriously injured, never to return to the battlefield. Since then, Russia has taken back most of the meager gains Ukrainian forces made and has taken the conflict’s largest prize since Artemovsk: Avdeyevka.


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