Kiev's armed forces are still involved in defensive fighting. But analysts expect Ukraine to launch a counter-offensive in the near future. If the Russian troops in Crimea can be put under pressure, this could lead to a rethink in the Kremlin, says expert Carlo Masala.
According to military expert Carlo Masala, a Ukrainian counter-offensive could "definitely turn the tide" in the war. If the Ukrainians succeed in separating Russia's southern front from the eastern one, it could enable them "to increase the pressure on Crimea to such an extent that Russia is about to lose the peninsula," said the international professor Politics at the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich, the newspapers of the Funke media group. "That could possibly get things moving in the Kremlin for someone other than Putin to come to the negotiating table."
Masala therefore considers a counter-offensive to be the most sensible option from the Ukrainian point of view. Following Tuesday's speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which he blamed the West for the war, Masala said it was difficult to say where he "left a back door open to start negotiations without preconditions."
According to the assessment of the German Brigadier General Christian Freuding, the defense of the Ukrainians is currently in a difficult phase. In an interview with the dpa, the head of the special staff for Ukraine in the German Ministry of Defense referred to a recognizable ability of the Russian military leadership to learn. "We also know that the Ukrainians are no longer able to freshen up their units with only volunteers, but that they are now specifically recruiting reservists of various ranks."
The planned reinforcements with western main battle tanks and armored personnel carriers will enable the Ukrainians to create local superiority, said Freuding. "You will then be able to achieve success in both defense and attack." In width, however, an advance is difficult.
Like Masala, Freuding emphasizes the importance of the land bridge to the annexed Crimean Peninsula. "If you start from the levels of operational management - tactical, operational, strategic - then I would call the land bridge to Crimea an operational goal. It is certainly one that is at the heart of the Ukrainians' considerations, because it allows them to use their political-strategic goal, namely regaining territorial integrity," said Freuding.
"At the same time, by cutting the land bridge, they would also mean that the Russian troops would probably not be able to hold the entire part of the land bridge west of Zaporizhia leading to the Crimea for long."
