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The Russian army has lost half of its combat capability in Ukraine, including up to 2,500 tanks, and the main attack of the Kiev counter-offensive is yet to come, the British armed forces chief said.
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin dismissed claims that Ukraine’s counteroffensive was slow, arguing that the counteroffensive against Russia was “never a single act” and that Kiev’s military strategy “starved, stretched and struck” Russian defenses gradually to collapse.
Ukraine struggled to breach Russia’s heavily fortified defenses in its counterattack launched a month ago, dashed hopes of some of Kiev’s western allies for a quick breakthrough by Ukrainian forces.
“The question is: how to arrange a more than a thousand-kilometer front line in such a way that it becomes more of a problem for Russia than for Ukraine?” Radakin said at a parliamentary hearing. “That’s why you see Ukraine investigating multiple axes and doing feints.”
Radakin acknowledged that the density of Russian minefields was “stronger than expected”, the lack of Ukrainian air support and “not all [military] equipment they [Kyiv] wanted” had complicated the campaign.
But he also said it was unfair to tie Ukraine to a specific timeline and that “Russia is so weak now that it doesn’t have the strength to do it.” [its own] counteroffensive.”
“Russia has lost almost half of its army’s combat capability,” Radakin said. “Last year it fired 10 million artillery shells, but at best it can produce 1 million shells a year. It has lost 2,500 tanks and can produce 200 at best [new] tanks per year,” he said.
The UK is the second-biggest donor of military aid to Ukraine after the US and is at the forefront of supplying Kiev with advanced military equipment, including main battle tanks and long-range cruise missiles.
In an often heated series of talks with members of the British Parliament’s Defense Committee, Radakin also defended the British armed forces’ own state of readiness – although he acknowledged that the army was using “very old” armored vehicles.
“We need bigger supplies, we need to be deadlier, and we need to increase our productivity,” Radakin said. “I wouldn’t say I’m happy.”
The Ministry of Defense is set to issue a long-delayed command document on how the UK armed forces will spend their around £50 billion annual defense budget. Radakin said he “understood” that this would be released before Parliament’s summer recess on July 20.