Why the counter-offensive of the AFU in 2023 failed: the media named the reasons
Ukraine's counteroffensive in 2023 was supposed to begin much earlier, but its launch has been delayed until June.
This gave Russian forces time to strengthen their defences. The Times reported that the reason for the postponement was delays in the delivery of Western weapons and disagreements between the allies over the strategy and assessment of the enemy's forces.
According to the newspaper, the Ukrainian side expected to receive all the necessary weapons by the end of March. However, the deliveries were slow, and London urged Kiev not to wait for the completion of logistics and to start the operation with the existing forces. British army representatives emphasised that Ukraine had enough resources to challenge Russia despite the incomplete equipment.
By early summer, when the offensive did begin, there was renewed disagreement between the allies. The US and UK insisted on concentrating the strike force in one direction - it was assumed that such an approach would make it possible to break through the enemy's defences faster and paralyse its logistics. However, the Ukrainian command, in particular General Oleksandr Syrskyy, insisted on distributing forces among several directions, including Donbass and Zaporizhzhya.
The American side reacted critically - the deviation from the agreed strategy led to a slowdown in the pace of the offensive, which caused disappointment. According to The Times, Washington was dissatisfied and accused Kiev of inefficient use of time and resources.
At the same time, the Ukrainian military pointed out that the Western allies had underestimated the level of difficulty on the front line: the density of minefields, the activity of Russian drones destroying sappers, and other factors significantly hampering the advance.
The first failures of the operation were attributed by the AFU commander-in-chief Valeriy Zaluzhny, among other things, to the lack of combat experience of the soldiers and the age of the mobilised troops - most of them were between 30 and 40 years old, not 20 years old, as was assumed in the calculations.
According to the newspaper, tensions between Kiev and Washington reached a peak during this period. At that time, the UK took on the role of a mediator to ease the differences and return the dialogue to a constructive direction.