According to the leaked documents, Ukraine can expect big gains from its offensive. But it would seem the reality is quite different. Even the Wall Street Journal, a Ukraine booster, has doubts.
Indeed, the documents themselves tell a different story, which helps explain the mad dash by the Biden administration to try and stop the dissemination of the leaked documents.
The planned Ukrainian late Spring offensive could be a death trap for the US, NATO and even America’s Asian allies.
A brigade is normally between 3,000 and 5,000 soldiers. Using the higher number, Ukraine is planning to commit 60,000 troops in the counteroffensive, focused on an effort to break Russia’s control over Black Sea ports other than Sevastopol.
However, it is likely Ukraine will launch some sort of simultaneous attack on Crimea and Sevastopol, if it can.
The offensive is largely the brainchild of US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland. She is the éminence grise in the Biden administration when it comes to Ukraine.
Nuland has not made any secret of her ambition for Ukraine to take back Crimea. Nuland, who is rigidly anti-Russian and anti-Putin, would like to see the Putin government collapse: achieving that in her view requires an absolute victory by Ukraine over Russia, meaning that Ukraine will retake every square meter of its lost land. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agrees.
Nuland has a long history with Ukraine. In the Obama administration, she supported the Maidan protestors and the overthrow of the legally elected, but pro-Russia, government of Ukraine.
There are secret recordings of her conversations with the US ambassador to Ukraine at the time, deciding who would be best to replace Viktor Yanukovych, who was then president of Ukraine. Yanukovych was elected in 2010 in a runoff between himself and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Yanukovych originally came from Donetsk; he is now in exile in Russia.
The US backed the coup in Ukraine, even though it was illegal and undemocratic. Since then most of the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine have not participated in Ukrainian elections, including Zelensky’s election in 2019.
Now, after Russian annexations, participation is foreclosed as the Donbas region “republics” in eastern Ukraine (Donetsk and Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea now are, in the view of the Russian government, part of Russia.
The planned counteroffensive, despite US and NATO support, faces some significant obstacles. The nine US-NATO-equipped brigades have less armor than promised by NATO.
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