Kiev’s Counteroffensive Bluster ‘All About PR’, as ‘NATO Stocks Emptied, Armies Stripped’

The Kiev regime is talking big about its much-touted spring counteroffensive in the hopes of demonstrating to its Western backers that the huge amount of military aid donated to it as part of the proxy war with Russia has not been in vain, International affairs and security analyst Mark Sleboda.

The Kiev regime has gathered up “cannon fodder” for its greatly heralded spring counteroffensive, International affairs and security analyst Mark Sleboda told Sputnik.

There are estimated to be some 12 or 13 new brigades - upwards of 50,000 trained troops - on top of up to 100,000 territorial defense conscripted personnel, he said, adding that at least 40,000 troops - nine brigades - have been NATO-trained over the past couple of months. The training was in line with an abbreviated training course, so “don't expect miracles from them”, he added.

Still, Ukrainian troops have received some combined arms warfare and training from the West, along with military transport and weaponry, including about 250 tanks of which about 30 or so are modern Leopard 2 tanks and about 14 are Challengers, Sleboda said.

Regarding the main thrust of this 'Spring Counteroffensive', it is allegedly to be to the South through heavily fortified Russian defensive lines, and Zaporozhye, according to the analyst. Another mooted area of offense from the Kiev regime's forces could be around the flanks of Artemovsk, known in Ukraine by its pre-Soviet name Bakhmut. The Kiev regime has gathered some 80,000 in the area of the city, which has been at the center of hostilities in Donbass for months, with the Ukrainian Armed Forces sustaining heavy losses and sacrificing civilian lives there.

Also, a “diversionary” cross-border incursion into the Russian mainland around the city of Belgorod could be considered. This scenario would not be about military strategy, added Sleboda, but “all about PR and generating, supposedly, panic". Some wild speculations have even suggested the possibility that Kiev will undertake a crossing of the Dniper.

However, even Western mainstream media admits that Ukrainian forces would encounter - in the event of such an advance - Russia's layered trenched networks, concrete fortifications, pillboxes, tank obstacles and minefields, Sleboda pointed out. If Kiev were to gather troops, ammunition, fuel - everything needed for an offensive - they would be targeted behind the lines by Russia’s precision strikes, the analyst explained, also pointing to the deteriorating condition of the Kiev regime's air defense system.

For all its bluster, even Kiev administration officials, “speaking anonymously through their stenographers in The New York Times”, have recently admitted that they do not believe they can achieve much of what they have been vehemently bragging about, Sleboda said.

The Biden administration has openly questioned whether Ukraine can boast any significant success on the battlefield, for all the weapons the West has been funneling there. “So, it all comes down to politics,” said Sleboda, as the collective West has “invested” hugely in Ukraine.

“NATO's stocks have been emptied. A number of countries have stripped their own armies of artillery for this, including the UK, Denmark, Estonia and possibly some others. So there's huge investment here. And something that can be labeled a victory is needed, even if we're now heavily into the game of lowering expectations and talking things back to redefine what that victory, what that success, might look like,” the International affairs and security analyst stated.

Russian forces are inextricably dug in and have been preparing for this for a long time, whereas Kiev is perfectly aware its forces might be charging into a killing field, Sleboda asserted.

For more fascinating commentary in the issue, check out our Sputnik radio show Political Misfits.