2023-08-17 05:11:50
A Ukrainian brigade commander near the front line, July 27, 2023. “We are outnumbered by the Russians, we don’t have their firepower, we have to be better. I come to support my men in battle,” he said. LAURENT VAN DER STOCKT FOR “THE WORLD”
A confession is rare from a high-ranking officer. Heard on July 12 by the Defense and Armed Forces Committee of the National Assembly, General Jacques Langlade de Montgros warned: the war in Ukraine “will continue in 2024, or even in 2025”explained the head of the French military intelligence directorate, not very optimistic about the success of the counter-offensive launched by kyiv. “This conflict is a war of attrition resolutely part of the long term”assured the senior officer, evoking “two boxers in a ring exhausting themselves blow after blow, without it being known which will collapse first”.
A little more than two months after the launch by Kiev of the first counter-offensive maneuvers, soldiers and analysts alike share the same observation: the Ukrainian army is not managing, at least not for the moment, to cross the thick wall of fortifications erected by the Russians on some 900 kilometers of front. Volodymyr Zelensky himself recognizes this. “The counter-offensive is difficultexplained the Ukrainian president again during an interview published on August 7 by several South American media. Progress is probably slower than some would like or imagine. »
Since the first assaults launched by its troops on June 4, Ukraine has been gaining ground, but only marginally. In July, soldiers in kyiv reportedly recovered 85 square kilometers of their territory, after initial gains of around 200 square kilometers in June, according to the site War Mapperwhich updates maps of the conflict daily.
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Progress is very slow: since the end of May, the Russians have lost only 0.1% of Ukrainian territory and still occupy more than 100,000 square kilometers, or about 17.5% of the country. The Ukrainians claimed, on Wednesday August 16, the capture of Urozhaine, on the southern front line, but it is a village, which had 1,000 inhabitants before the invasion of February 2022.
“Most mined country in the world”
This more modest growth than expected can be explained by several factors. The first relates to the preparation of the Russians. Unlike the successful counter-offensives carried out in the fall of 2022 in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions, the forces of Moscow this time had time to prepare for the Ukrainian assaults. Huge lines of fortifications were erected, especially in the south of the country. About thirty kilometers deep, there are now thousands of trenches, bunkers, dragon’s teeth, etc. “Russia has designed one of the largest defensive systems in Europe since World War II”estimates the American think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, in a report published on June 9.
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