Why Can't Western Weapons Save Day for Ukraine's Counteroffensive?
18:18 GMT 13.06.2023 (Updated: 18:28 GMT 13.06.2023)
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The first days of the well-advertised Ukrainian counteroffensive have borne no tangible results prompting disappointment among Western military analysts. What's behind the failure?
"I would say that the counteroffensive is less than what [the West] expect[s]," Michael Maloof, former senior security policy analyst in the US Office of the Secretary of Defense, told Sputnik. "The extent to which the Ukrainians are undertaking any so-called counteroffensive is more of a probing action than an actual assault and onslaught."
Per Maloof, the failure could be largely attributed to poor planning, lack of manpower, resources and training.
Western Wonder-Weapons Bite the Dust
The Ukrainian military has so far failed in all directions of their counteroffensive, despite receiving billions of dollars' worth of military equipment from the US and its NATO allies. In the first week alone, the Kiev regime forces lost thousands of casualties, along with more than a dozen of German Leopard 2 tanks, nearly two dozen of US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) and several French AMX-10 RC light tanks. The pictures of destroyed Western military equipment have already been circulated by the media and social networks.
The Russian armed forced has destroyed a vast amount of Ukraine's military equipment since day one of the special military operation, including: 442 airplanes and 238 helicopters, 4,585 unmanned aerial vehicles, 426 air defence missile systems, 9,939 tanks and other armoured combat vehicles, 1,122 combat vehicles equipped with MRLS, 5,100 field artillery cannons and mortars, as well as 10,927 units of special military equipment, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
"For some reason, the West believed that the appearance on the battlefield of Western equipment, especially Leopard tanks, would confuse the Russian army, and the Russian army would give up its principles, but the West miscalculated he," Anatoliy Matviychuk, military expert and retired colonel, who has experience in combat operations in Afghanistan and Syria, told Sputnik.
13 June 2023, 10:23 GMT
Matviychuk has drawn attention to the fact that the Russian military has repeatedly participated in local conflicts and peace missions starting from 1979. Therefore, despite all the shortcomings of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian military equipment has undergone development and is up to date in terms of modern warfare challenges.
"Having met with Russian technology, Western technology turned out to be not on par, neither in terms of armament, nor in armor, nor in maneuverability," said the expert.
He placed special emphasis on maneuverability flaws of Western armored vehicles. Per him, the Eastern European military theater with its freeze, river floods, mud, swamps and other critical weather conditions became a serious challenge for the NATO military equipment. The Ukrainian military has faced a plethora of logistic problems including that the German 60-ton battle tanks could not cross some of Ukraine's bridges.
Europe and the world have suddenly realized that Western-style equipment is not "second to none" in many respects, that it has its own shortcomings, along with its advantages, according to the military analyst.
How Could Kiev's Failures Affect Weapons Supplies?
Russia's relatively rapid obliteration of Western weapons and lack of any tangible victories on the front could affect weapons supplies, according to Sputnik's interlocutors.
"I think countries will begin to see that whatever they're putting into the mix is getting destroyed rather quickly," said Maloof. "Bradleys have already been destroyed. They are sitting ducks. Some Leopard tanks have been destroyed already. The countries that have them cannot continue to supply unless they go into a war time production. And their economies cannot support that right now. They've got to start facing reality. They're not doing that despite the political rhetoric of support. And I think this gives Ukraine a very false sense of not only bravado but a false sense of support. That is not going to continue, because reality dictates otherwise. Look, the European industries are hurting because they on their own cut off their nose to spite their face by cutting off all oil and gas from the east, from Russia. Their quality of life has depreciated greatly. This is going to affect Europe for decades to come."
Kiev politicians have already urged their Western patrons to provide even more military equipment and armored vehicles to replace those destroyed. "Every Leopard 2 is literally as good as gold for the decisive offensive," Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrii Melnyk told the German press on Sunday.
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However, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced earlier this week that Berlin cannot replace every Leopard tank destroyed on the Ukrainian battlefield. He asserted to Kiev that Germany will continue to supply repaired Leopard 1 A5 tanks starting from July. "And by the end of the year there will be more than a hundred of them [in Ukraine's service]," the minister said. However, according to international military observers it would be too little, too late.
The Biden administration has disbursed another $325 million to provide the Kiev regime with additional M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) to replace those lost over the past week as well as ammo for HIMARS and NASAMS. The collective West is going to maximize its support for the Ukrainian counteroffensive and provide Kiev with long-term aid, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has promised. Still, according to Maloof, this enthusiasm will be short-lived.
"They don't want to face reality, basically," suggested Maloof. "And these politicians will speak a good line. And again, I think it gives Ukraine a false sense of bravado and encouragement when that support may be yanked away from them at any time. Look, we're going to be entering into elections here pretty soon. Continued supply of Ukraine will probably become a political issue. And people here at home are hurting and they're going to be realizing that this is unsustainable. So, I think whatever Blinken says today and he makes these kinds of statements all the time, it's all rhetoric. It does not match reality. And that's part of the problem. That's why we see the continuous failures in our policies that promise one thing but cannot deliver. And this is just one more example of that."
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Who's to Blame for Counteroffensive Failure?
While assessing the Ukraine army's failures, Western analysts suggested that it stems from the lack of training. In general, the Western observers tend to pin the whole blame on Ukrainian soldiers unfamiliar with the NATO equipment. It's not fair, as per Matviychuk.
"[The West] actually trained [Ukrainian soldiers] for a year," the retired colonel highlighted. "They underwent training in the UK, US, Germany and other countries. And now what do they say? Why were [Ukrainians] thrown in the battle if they were not ready? Was it deliberate? Are they just cannon fodder for slaughter? You know, this sort of rhetoric means: 'We are not to blame, it is the Ukrainians who are to blame, because they failed to master our magnificent Western technology'."
In fact, the Western military industrial complex has been given a black eye: Rheinmetall AG, a German automotive and arms manufacturer, has already lost 15% of the value of the shares due to the fact that the Leopards got rapidly destroyed, noted Matviychuk. This is reputational damage to the US defense contractors, too, he continued. The US armored vehicles proved quite efficient in the fight against shepherds in Afghanistan and Iraq, but in Eastern Europe they failed en masse, which indicates the low quality of equipment in the first place, per the military expert.
"That is, we are witnessing a 'recession' in terms of military-industrial authority. Some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, began to think about buying equipment in Russia, in China," Matviychuk pointed out.
Westerners Started Protesting
It appears that the Western public has grown weary of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict as well as of NATO member states spending billions on weapons for Kiev at the expense of their domestic economies and social programs.
"People are protesting more and more, particularly as they see their quality of life diminishing here in the West," said Maloof. "And what we're hoping is that people finally rise up and say enough. I'm working with a group called Patriots International Alliance. We're trying to get a ceasefire underway and we're trying to get notables from around the country to sit down and get both sides to sit down and at least have a ceasefire and then start negotiating these kinds of terms. (…) It's going to take time, I would equate it to the popular opposition that grew over time that ultimately brought a halt to the Vietnam War. I remember that. And it took time, but it finally was achieved."
Matviychuk appears to share Maloof's stance:
"In Poland, there are rallies against the presence of Ukrainians and the supply of weapons, in Bulgaria there are thousands of rallies. And Germany was generally divided along the axis of the former GDR and the former FRG. (…) Even in the United States, some congressmen say that it is necessary to urgently stop the supply of weapons [to Kiev]. I think that as the conflict develops and aggravates, the majority of socially prominent citizens will advocate for an end to the war, as they are aware of the detriment, first of all, for their countries."
