Kyiv does not control the sky over Ukraine, it does not have enough aircraft, so the counteroffensive will begin not with a massive air attack, but with missile strikes, experts interviewed by the WSJ say.
Ukraine is unlikely to launch a counteroffensive with a “NATO-style” assault involving a massive air attack using aircraft and cruise missiles, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing experts.
For such an attack, Kiev does not have the required number of fighters and helicopters, said retired US Army Colonel John Nagle, professor at the US Army War College. In addition, none of the parties to the conflict controls the airspace over Ukraine, he said.
The WSJ notes that the Ukrainian military does not disclose its plans, but some aspects of the counteroffensive can be envisaged, given the equipment at the disposal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including those supplied by the West.
Experts interviewed believe that Ukraine will launch an attack using ground-based precision long-range weapons, including missiles and artillery. Then, the interlocutors believe, it will be followed by a land offensive, where Kyiv should combine Soviet tanks with Western ones.
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said at the end of January that the Challenger 2 would be handed over to Ukraine by early summer. Also, European countries promised to send German-made Leopard 2 to Kyiv, and the arrival of American M1 Abrams is expected at the end of this year, writes WSJ.
After that, experts expect, most likely there will be dozens more armored fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers.
According to Phillips O’Brien, a professor at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, Kiev may try to move from the Zaporozhye region towards Melitopol and the Sea of Azov, as well as cut the land corridor connecting Crimea, annexed in 2014, with the territory of Russia.
At the end of February, Vadim Skibitsky, deputy head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine would try to “drive a wedge into the Russian front in the south, between Crimea and mainland Russia.”
Source: Racurs
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