Was President Zelensky betrayed?

NATO Secretary General and President of Ukraine. Photo: Internet

He is sure that by summer the military situation will change in Kiev's favor. French President Emmanuel Macron stressed that even if the operation fails, Ukraine's allies will not stop helping.

This counter-offensive has been talked about since last fall. Ukraine, with the help of the West, was hoping to take Crimea this summer. However, the situation of the Armed Forces has only worsened. The Russian army has liberated Artemovsk.

Nevertheless, Oleksey Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, stated that the Ukrainian Armed Forces will counterattack "tomorrow or next week." And according to the advisor to the head of the presidential administration, Mikhail Podolyak, the counterattack has already begun, but since the front is 1,500 km long, not everyone notices this.

That is the opinion of the authorities, but the Western media is not so optimistic. According to The Washington Post, British General Richard Barrons pointed out the weakness of the air defense force, unable to repel Russian missiles in a counterattack.

According to US intelligence, Kiev would advance a few kilometers at most and pose a threat to the Russians as they move across the “land bridge” to Crimea. It is unrealistic to dream of more than that when Ukraine has chronic problems with training soldiers and supplying ammunition.

The German newspaper Die Welt notes that for the operation to be successful, Kiev needs a lot of fighter planes. But there will be none in the summer. Russia has five or six times more superiority over its enemy in the sky. And Zelensky should not repeat the sad lesson of Adolf Hitler at the Kursk Arc in World War II, when the attempt to overcome the consequences of the disaster at Stalingrad turned into another crushing defeat for Germany.

Polish President Andrzej Duda also warned that Putin has not lost a single war and that the Russian army could continue to crush Ukraine. The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, further clarified that a few dozen F-16s would not change the course of the war, as this is by no means a miracle weapon.

Even the Ukrainian military shares the Western assessment. Major General Sergey Krivonos believes that without a strong enough air force, the counteroffensive will be doomed because Russia's air defense potential is strong and well replenished.

According to the Center for Public Opinion Survey, nearly 64% of respondents said that Ukraine opposes the end of hostilities, about 67% want to fully restore Ukraine's territorial integrity. Similar proportions do not believe in the possibility of reconciliation with Moscow.

As for negotiations - only 23% believe in this solution. As political analyst Vadim Karasev explained in an interview with Ukrainian media, the "peace camp" does not want to be friends with Russia, but wants to resolve the conflict only by military means.

Political analyst Ruslan Bortnik believes that the US and the EU seem to be preparing a “back door” for the situation by saying that they have done everything, have transferred everything necessary for Kiev to fight and now the organization and the outcome of the counter-offensive depends only on Ukraine itself. If Zelensky’s team fails, then the Ukrainians will be responsible for everything, when the world has persuaded them to act differently but they have not followed through!

It is worth noting that although many political analysts and the media have very different assessments of optimism in the counterattack, even pessimism, the US and the West will continue to provide weapons and financial support to Ukraine to turn this country into a powerful and effective tool of pressure on Russia.

And, Zelensky and other Kiev politicians have become hostages of their own information campaigns when what they say does not correspond to the military situation that has developed on the battlefield. Because of this, their popularity is bound to fall and they are trying their best to save it.