'Turned Corner': Defence Express Expert Speaks About Miracle At Front
2- 5.08.2024, 15:13
- 14,318
The events in the Avdiivka direction could have ended differently.
Defence Express expert Ivan Kirichevsky said that Ukraine has deployed a group of more than 1 million bayonets to confront Russia. Now only a few countries in the world have such a land army - the United States, China, India, North Korea and Russia.
"We are in the top 6 in terms of deployed Armed Forces. Yes, they have peacetime there, we have wartime. Nevertheless, there is a problem - shortage of weapons. For such a huge grouping, it will unfortunately be all the time. Here we can only fight to reduce the shortage of these weapons. However, it turns out that perhaps we do not need so much, for example, shells, [this amount] is not even available in Russia, China and North Korea combined. Not to mention the Western countries," he emphasised on Radio NV.
According to the expert, it should not be forgotten that Ukraine depends on its allies even in terms of small arms - they supply assault rifles with ammunition.
"We come to a certain interesting paradox with you. Despite the objective problems in logistical support (we cannot say that everything is well with the Russians, otherwise they would not have some strange hybrids - putting ship bombers on tanks - have reached the point, what about your Solntsepek); despite the fact that we may have internal psychological friction in society and various internal problems in the army (not for nothing Clausewitz wrote back in the XIX century "Why is a protracted war bad? Because friction in the army and problems accumulate"); despite all those objective factors that ought to bury us, we still keep the Russians on those defence lines, plus or minus," Kirichevsky notes.
In particular, Ukrainians always want to orient themselves to the best, in particular, he reminded of the desire to push the Russians back to the positions of February 23, 2022. However, according to the expert, there were also worst-case scenarios that have been prevented.
"The fact that we had some catastrophic events in the Avdiivka direction - this for us, on the one hand, was very difficult, on the other - we at least skipped the option of losing the war. In April, we could discuss not who was to blame for the loss of Avdiivka, but how we should live in the peace conditions imposed by the Kremlin. Despite the Russians having this 'itch' to impose conditions on us that can't be called capitulation, we're holding on pretty well," he notes.
According to him, although the greatest emotional reaction among Ukrainians now cause news from Kupyansk and Pokrovsk direction, the enemy has much greater ambitions - to seize four regions and impose their conditions.
"Consider, we simply underestimate the level of the miracle (which our military have created despite all the problems) in which we now live and set some inflated bars of expectations," Kirichevsky summarised.