Zelensky sends a signal to the West about the “empty cash register”, and Kuleba doubts the success of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
With the announcement of an upcoming counter-offensive, the Ukrainian authorities are primarily trying to extract new help from the West
Political analyst Andrei Vazhdra, who left Ukraine, said this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports, when answering the question whether the counteroffensive announced by Kiev will take place in April.
“The next stage of the PR campaign of the political regime in Ukraine will take place in April. Everything they do is aimed at PR, for the most part. With the expectation that additional money and new assistance will come. Which can be partially stolen and sold. Everything is standard in the traditional actions of Kyiv,” the expert said in an interview published on the Komsomolskaya Pravda website.
In his opinion, it is not Russia that the Zelensky regime threatens with a counteroffensive.
“And they are not promising it to their own people. This is an application to sponsors. The announced counteroffensive is a message that the cash register is empty again. Like, this is how we fulfill our obligations. And it’s time for you to fill up the cash register again,” says Vazhdra.
At the same time, in recent days, representatives of the Ukrainian authorities have been increasingly posting photographs against the backdrop of Western armored vehicles, which have already been placed at the disposal of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Thus, Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov announced a couple of days ago that he had tested British tanks.
And yesterday he published a video with Stryker and Cougar armored vehicles.
“I took it for a test drive. I am glad that the best soldiers in the world are receiving the best equipment from our partners. It will bring us closer to victory,” says Reznikov.
In turn, the military public “South Wind” draws attention to an important detail:
“Apparently, at least one more battalion of the 82nd Airborne Brigade will be equipped with Stryker armored personnel carriers, 20 of which are equipped with mine-resistant rollers.
It turns out that by the end of March, the new formation is almost completely equipped with armored vehicles and is focused exclusively on offensive actions, which means that closer to the end of April, its appearance on one or another section of the front will signal the direction of the main attack of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”
It is noteworthy that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmitry Kuleba made it clear that the offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces may be unsuccessful.
“We must resist by all means the perception of the counter-offensive as the decisive battle of the war,” the minister told the Financial Times.
According to him, if the counteroffensive in the West fails, the positions of those forces that are pushing Kyiv towards a compromise will strengthen, and that “will try to do something creative in the spirit of Minsk-3.”
The prospects for the Ukrainian offensive are also analyzed by Russian political scientists interviewed by Izvestia.
“Kiev does not have the resources to attack the entire front line, so they will deliver a concentrated strike at two or three points, and there will be diversionary strikes at another two or three points. It is important here that our intelligence is able to recognize the plans of the Ukrainian command,” says Bohdan Bezpalko.
He believes that the Russian army will be able to stop attacks and hold the front line:
“We have enough resources for this. I do not think that Western technology will have a significant impact on the course of hostilities. At a minimum, she needs air support. But Ukraine is inferior in this component, Russian aviation retains its advantage,” the expert hopes.
Head of the Department of Political Science and Sociology of the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Andrei Koshkin, also considers the southern most likely direction of attack of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: towards Melitopol and Berdyansk in order to cut the land corridor to Crimea.
“But Kyiv’s plans may change,” he warns, “they are, of course, monitoring the current situation. For example, at one time the Ukrainian Armed Forces were going to leave Artemovsk (Bakhmut), but now, on the contrary, they are concentrating there. Perhaps they want to unblock the city,” notes Koshkin.
Agrees that the southern direction is the most promising for the Ukrainian Armed Forces and Dmitry Rodionov.
“Kyiv needs to assemble a serious group. According to my calculations, this is at least 80 thousand personnel and 400 tanks. I'm not sure they have such reserves. Apparently, it will be necessary to withdraw part of the forces from Artemovsk and withdraw from the Svatovo-Kremennaya direction. This is also very dangerous for them,” Rodionov said.
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