Ukraine has half a year left – belated help from the West will not help the Ukrainian Armed Forces to take the initiative on the battlefield

New aid packages for Ukraine will help its military withstand a possible future Russian offensive, but will not allow the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) to seize the initiative and return to the offensive, writes retired British Army Colonel Richard Kemp in a newspaper article The Telegraph.

He recalls that last summer there were high expectations regarding Ukraine’s counteroffensive, which was supposed to push back Russian troops and create the conditions for victory. However, not only did this not happen, but the offensive was delayed and ultimately did not achieve significant success.

“This failure can be fully explained by the West’s refusal to provide adequate military aid. The result was a quiet backlash in domestic politics on both sides of the Atlantic, which undoubtedly contributed to the failure of the US President to push the next aid package through Congress in time , as well as the reluctance of European countries to increase their own aid,” notes the author.

Kemp emphasizes that the combination of heavy losses on the Ukrainian side and a lack of ammunition allowed Russian troops to return to the offensive and seize the strategic initiative throughout the war zone. Gradually advancing, Russian forces achieved limited but concrete successes on the front, forcing Ukraine to surrender positions, as well as causing serious damage to Ukrainian infrastructure through airstrikes.

New military aid packages from the US and Britain, if delivered quickly, could allow Ukraine to stabilize the frontline while protecting infrastructure in the rear, and also prove critical amid the possibility of a large-scale Russian offensive in the summer .

“While new aid packages may help blunt this problem, they will not allow Ukraine to take the initiative and go back on the offensive. One of the reasons for this is that Russia has achieved air superiority in many directions, and ground-based air defenses will remain insufficient. Another reason is that war-weary Ukraine simply does not have enough troops and, after more than two years of fierce fighting, seems unwilling to begin the large-scale mobilization it needs,” Kemp explains.

According to him, the challenges facing Ukraine are almost insurmountable. Among the reasons he cites is that Russia has a rapidly growing wartime economy and has amassed vast forces that it is willing to sacrifice to achieve Putin’s goals.

“If Moscow manages to achieve significant success in the summer, perhaps even capture Kharkiv, the second largest city of Ukraine, then in the winter the West will not have the appetite for additional costs,” the British colonel outlined a perspective on the course of the war in Ukraine.

This bleak picture, he adds, will be worsened by further uncertainty about the results of the US and UK elections.

“It looks like, as in previous wars, Russia will start badly but end well thanks to the resolve that Ukraine’s Western allies so lack,” he sums up.