"Ukrainian Offensive Nears 2 Month Mark: Little Left to Replace Heavy Losses"
by Brian Berletic
The New Atlas July 26, 2023)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKFiJ37Uwi8

8:15 Brian Berletic: “Every single day, regardless of whether Ukraine is making progress on the battlefield or not, they’re expending artillery rounds. They’re also wearing down their guns. They’re also losing their guns as Russia finds them, targets them, and either damages or destroys them. The same goes for Ukraine’s armor, their main battle tanks, their armored personnel carriers, their infantry fighting vehicles. These are being used daily. They are facing heavy use. They are wearing down. They require maintenance. They’re also being damaged and destroyed as the fighting unfolds. All of this is having an accumulative effect. If and when Ukraine breaks through the security zone – or, as some call it, the gray zone – they will have reached the first of several Russian defensive lines. They’re going to have far less available to them in terms of artillery, in terms of armor, in terms of trained Manpower to consolidate these gains and then exploit them to break through these successive defensive lines.”

10:02 Brian Berletic: “It doesn’t matter where Ukrainian forces end on the map. Wherever they end, they will end exhausted. And they will end without NATO being able to rebuild their army yet again. This will be their fourth army that the US and its allies would have to create and transfer over to Ukraine. And for those not keeping track, the US built up Ukraine’s military from 2014 after the US orchestrated regime change in Kiev all the way up until 2022 when Russia began its special military operation. The first army the US helped Ukraine organize was decimated during the opening phases of the special military operation. The West then transferred equipment and began training soldiers ahead of the Fall offensive in 2022. That offensive was carried out in Kherson and Kharkov. Those forces were also decimated. And then, from the end of the Fall Offensive last year up until early June this year when Ukraine launched its next large offensive, a whole other Army’s worth of equipment and trained Manpower was created or transferred over to Ukraine. And now we’re watching that Army be decimated on the battlefield.”

11:24 “Now, I want to take a look at this Politico article: Ukrainian offensive was delayed by lack of munitions, Zelensky says. The Ukrainian president acknowledged that the delay allowed Russia to delay its offensive. And what Politico is saying, is that Ukraine didn’t get enough, didn’t get enough equipment, they didn’t get it fast enough. And all at the same time Russia was growing stronger. This is why the offense is, at least, not succeeding. It hasn’t officially failed yet, but it is not succeeding. This is what the article said:”

11:58 “Ukraine had hoped to start its highly anticipated counter-offensive earlier in the Spring but held off because it lacked the necessary weapons, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said. ‘We did have plans to start it in the Spring, but we didn’t because frankly we had not enough Munitions and Armaments and not enough brigades properly trained in these weapons. Still more of the training missions were held outside Ukraine,’ Zelensky said in an interview that aired on CNN’s Fareed Zacharia on GPS. . . .”

. . . 13:10 “Now, this wouldn’t have made any difference. It’s clear that whether the offensive began in the Spring or a few months later in the Summer, it was not going to succeed. They not only didn’t have enough equipment. They didn’t have the right equipment. They don’t have air power. They don’t have sufficient air defenses. They don’t have a sufficient amount of artillery or armor. They would have needed many times more of everything they have now plus systems they don’t have right now.”

13:39 “I’ve talked about the minefields. And in order to breach minefields you need to clear the enemy on the other side of the minefield who will be firing at you if you don’t while you try to clear the minefield. Ukraine does not have the capability to do that. So they attempt to clear the minefield and they’re being fired upon the entire time. It’s hard enough to clear a minefield without being shot at. Ukraine is being shot at. That’s why we’re watching piles of NATO armor burn in heaps in these minefields. And this is not a result of political willpower. This is a result of military-industrial output. Russia has its military-industrial output prepared for this type of conflict. The Collective West does not.” 14:27