The Wall Street Journal said on July 22 that Western military officials knew earlier this year that Ukraine lacked the supplies and training to launch a successful counteroffensive against Russian forces, but still allowed Kiev to launch its disastrous operation. The Ukrainian military has lost 26,000 men and more than 3,000 pieces of hardware, according to the latest figures from Moscow. The U.S. and its allies knew that such an outcome was inevitable.
Citing leaked Pentagon documents, the newspaper claimed that U.S. military analysts counted a “tiny number” of Ukrainian weapons capable of hitting Russian aircraft, and determined that Kiev would face an “inability to prevent Russian air superiority…. America would never attempt to defeat a prepared defense without air superiority, but [the Ukrainians] don’t have air superiority,” said John Nagl, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel. “It’s impossible to overstate how important air superiority is for fighting a ground fight at a reasonable cost in casualties.”
RT remarks that in public, American officials told a different story. “We believe that the Ukrainians will meet with success in this counteroffensive,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told CNN on the eve of the operation. Several months earlier, Dan Rice, an Iraq War veteran who now serves as an adviser to the Ukrainian armed forces, declared that the counteroffensive would “shock the world” with its success. European leaders were similarly optimistic. Polish President Andrzej Duda, one of Kiev’s most fervent backers, announced in early June that the operation would lead to “the ousting of Russian military forces from all occupied territories.”
The Journal adds that Western officials have since downgraded their expectations, and are privately “alarmed” at the lack of results on the battlefield, according to recent media reports. According to unnamed diplomats, Western governments are therefore at a crossroads, and will soon need to decide whether to commit the massive amounts of arms, equipment, and money necessary to support Kiev in a longer conflict.
