Why is Ukraine's 'New Offensive' Doomed?

Kiev’s alleged second stage of the counteroffensive is nothing but a propaganda trick by the West to demonstrate that Kiev is still able to carry out certain missions, Moscow-based military expert and retired Russian Army colonel Anatoly Matviychuk told Sputnik.

All attempts by the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) to re-launch their counteroffensive have been halted and the enemy has been pushed back, suffering heavy losses, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.

Speaking at the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, he said that during the UAF’s latest attack, more than 200 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and that Russian forces had destroyed at least 26 enemy tanks. He added that 60% of the UAF’s military hardware had already been obliterated during the renewed hostilities.

According to him, “the enemy was not successful in any of the directions of firefight.”

The Russian president spoke after a US newspaper reported about UAF forces launching “the main thrust of its counteroffensive" as they threw in “thousands of troops held in reserve, many of them Western-trained and equipped.”

The way Western media are trumpeting about this so-called new offensive indicates “a provocative propaganda trick to show that Ukraine can still perform some tasks,” Anatoly Matviychuk said.

Dwelling on whether there is “any prospect” related to Ukraine’s “new offensive,” the expert said that he remains “skeptical," first of all due to the UAF’s “very low system of fire support for troops.”

“Secondly is the complete absence of the UAF’s presence in the air, with the Russian Air Force controlling the enemy throughout the entire depth of its operational area. I think that this ‘offensive’ may have some temporary tactical successes … but I do not foresee any changes at the frontline. And everything will most likely end the way Ukraine’s ‘first’ advance wrapped up,” he pointed out.

When asked why the UAF picked the Zaporozhye direction for the current phase of its counteroffensive, Matviychuk said that it is the area where “military and political interests intersect.”

According to the Russian expert, if it captured the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, the UAF could imitate a possible radioactive contamination of the area and demand that Russia withdraw its troops from there and demilitarize the area, allegedly in order to protect Europe from a radioactive cloud.

“Also, this area directly leads to Crimea via the shortest route. The most interesting thing is that there are many English-speaking military personnel in the UAF being spotted in this area, including advisers, instructors, and even the UK army’s ‘special air service’”, Matviychuk noted, describing Ukraine’s “new counteroffensive” as “the fruit of creativity of the US and the UK’s joint headquarters.”

He explained that Russian forces would tackle the UAF with the help of “mobile reserves” that “have been created in the form of tanks, combat vehicles, infantry, and armored personnel carriers.”

“Most importantly, our aviation has practically shifted to systematic combat actions in the entire Russian special military operation zone … That is, we are currently conducting a so-called active defense to weaken the enemy by launching attacks,” the expert concluded.

The comments come after US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby admitted that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is not progressing as quickly as hoped.

This followed President Putin telling a Russian Security Council meeting last week that there are no results of Ukraine’s counteroffensive and that the UAF had suffered extensive losses, with "tens of thousands" of soldiers killed.

Ukraine's much-hyped counteroffensive kicked off on June 4 after months of delays over a lack of military supplies from Western donors.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that Ukrainian troops kept trying, but were failing to advance. A number of Western media outlets also pointed out the unimpressive results of Kiev's counteroffensive, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky himself admitted that progress was "slower than desired."

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, for his part, said that since the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, Russia has destroyed 21 enemy aircraft, five helicopters, and about 1,244 tanks, also eliminating more than 26,000 Ukrainian servicemen.