“War is not always about spectacular victories.” A phrase coined by George Barrows, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). Think tank Following developments in the conflict in Ukraine for more than a year, the last months of the Ukrainian offensive and counteroffensive can be used as a summary. Launched in mid-June, punctuated by the recapture of some small strategic locations, with slow and very exhausting progress, Kiev and its Western allies have not made the progress they hoped for.
As NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg pointed out, in some sectors, the advances of Ukrainian troops do not exceed 100 meters per day. The progress is a stark contrast to the speed with which the army reclaimed territory from enemy forces last year — in three days in September, they managed to regain control of more than a third of the occupied Kharkiv region — and set the bar high. year. But experts warned early that the same situation should not happen again in 2023. Complex Russian defense lines with systems of trenches, trenches and minefields, built to make progress as difficult as possible, greatly slowed the rate of advance of the troops. On the ground in Kiev.
However, Ukrainian forces had overtaken some Russian positions in the line of advance to the south, a very promising front. They also demanded the liberation of some small towns in the Donbass, close to the disputed city of Bakhmut (Donetsk region), and these reforms have long been behind the scenes, not drawing attention. As George Barrows adds, “It’s mostly the boring stuff we don’t see and all the groundwork that sets up the conditions for success.”
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