FROM OUR REPORTER
KIEV – Is the Ukrainian offensive really imminent? The question arose spontaneously until a week ago, when we visited the Ukrainian front lines dedicated to defending the Lyman-Bakhmut salient, the hottest stretch of the entire Donbass front.
It often hit very poorly trained soldiers tasked with gaining experience quickly and somehow supporting the rarest units of veterans, the latter recruited since the Russian invasion of 2014 and now attempting to contain the much more massive 13 launched a few years ago months. “We’re worried. We’ve never fired a shot, we don’t know what to do under the bombs», among the many four frightened infantrymen in their forties who were recruited in early January and thrown into Bakhmut’s “meat grinder”, where even the older ones make the superstitious sign of the cross before boarding the armored vehicles which, under direct fire from the highly visible Russian tanks, cover the roughly 5 kilometers of “death” between the village of Chasiv Yar and the devastated suburbs of the besieged city.
But why doesn’t the General Staff send trained men into this crucial sector? We insisted, and the commanders’ response was always the same: «Our chief of staff, Valey Zaluzhny, knows his stuff. He is preparing the spring offensive, he has sent the best units abroad for training with NATO. We have fellow soldiers who are in the United States, in England, in the fields and between the mountain ranges in Poland and the Baltic countries. Soon they will return, and then we will be ready to launch the counterattack with the new Allied weapons».
Their statement sums up the essence of Ukraine’s next steps: they are the end of two successful offensives between September and November, when the Russians were forced to abandon the Kherson regions west of the Dnieper River, and then withdraw from Izyum and Lyman. that tens of thousands of Ukrainians learn combat strategies with NATO weapons. It is estimated that a year ago only a fifth of the national defense system was born, now it has increased to a third. The 59-year-old Air Force Colonel Roman Svetan is retired and advises the defense: “At least 60,000 soldiers have just returned from training abroad and can already be sent into combat today.” He confirms the recently published estimates of American and British military institutes, according to which the Kiev commands already have a hundred German tanks of the latest Leopard 2 model, mostly donated by Poland and the Baltic countries, at their disposal.
But not only. Still from the former Soviet provinces of Europe, terrified at the prospect that the next frontline would be home if Putin wins in Ukraine, about 250 old Soviet-made T-72 tanks are recently, as well as about sixty more advanced T-72s Models -72s. Meanwhile, the Czech Republic and Poland are sending in the last stocks of Mig-29 fighters. After all, for several weeks now, both near the Donbass and on the roads leading to the Zaporizhia and Kherson fronts, American armored vehicles Bradley and Stryker have been rushing by, powerful and fast, even on the black mud of the thaw.
This explains the words spoken two days ago by General Olexandr Syrsky, the head of the Ukrainian land forces, which have been quoted everywhere in the last few hours. “We see the Russians are still trying to take Bakhmut but they look tired as if their forces are running low. We will seize this opportunity very soon,” he said. The Russian reaction was not long in coming. Yesterday, artillery resumed shelling the entire Donbass front, especially in the Kreminna, Lyman and Svatove sectors further north towards Kharkiv. The UN condemns the treatment of prisoners on both the Russian and Ukrainian sides. it’s gonna be tough The next few weeks seem destined for important turning points.