[Korrespondent] It will be difficult for the Ukrainian military to contain the Russians in the summer.
The head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine predicts a difficult situation at the front starting in May 2024.
Forecasting the further course of hostilities is a thankless task.
However, most analysts agree that problems await Ukraine in the near future. The head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, Kirill Budanov, says that the coming period will be difficult, but “difficult and catastrophic are two different things.”
NEGATIVE OUTLOOK
President Vladimir Zelensky suggests that Russia intends to capture Chasov Yar before May 9, after which it will launch another offensive in June 2024. The Ukrainian military does not yet have enough equipment and artillery shells to repel Russian attacks at Chasovoy Yar. According to Zelensky, if the United States transfers weapons in time, Ukraine will be able to defeat the occupiers’ plans for a summer offensive.
“Armageddon will not happen, as many are now starting to say. But there will be problems from mid-May,” says Budanov.
IMPACT DIRECTION
Chasov Yar and its heights are the gateway to Konstantinovka and further to the Slavyansko-Kramatorsk agglomeration. It’s not for nothing that Chasov Yar is sometimes called the Gate of Donbass.
The attack on Kupyansk is a struggle for logistics.
The section of the Kremennaya-Svatovo front is an important artery, the foreground of the railway line to Starobelsk. The Russians are spending enormous resources in attacks on villages and plantings in this area and up to Kupyansk. They are trying to move the high-precision weapons of the Ukrainian Armed Forces away from the railway line.
In addition, the Russian army has tried to advance near Ugledar several times since last year, regularly leaving dozens of pieces of equipment there, including T-72B3 tanks manufactured in 2022, and old T-55s.
AVIATION FACTOR
According to military analysts, Russian aviation has returned to the battlefield as a serious factor. It may not be possible to quickly and reliably prevent the threat from Russian aviation even if the Ukrainian Armed Forces receive the first F-16s.
Russian pilots have more flying experience, more experienced ground crews than the quickly retrained Ukrainian ones, and more runways in the European part of Russia.
And then there are the AWACS (early airborne warning) planes - although Ukraine shot down two of them and likely damaged several more during overhauls on the ground. But these aircraft will rise into the air when the struggle for initiative in the sky begins.
WESTERN HELP
In addition to the recently approved assistance from the United States, Ukraine will continue to receive other weapons. In Germany, the production of smart mines is being resumed, and the plant of 35x228 mm shells for Cheetahs will reach planned capacity in mid-2024.
Work is also underway to localize the production of Bayraktarov in Ukraine.
What remains is the drone coalition, in which France, Germany, Great Britain and other countries are sending Ukraine hundreds of kamikaze drones and reconnaissance vehicles.
Europe is expanding production of Patriot launchers. Poland, Germany, Romania, Spain and the Netherlands are planning to purchase up to a thousand PAC-2 GEM-T missiles.
There are prospects of receiving 1.5 million 155mm ammunition from EU countries, including through the Czech initiative.