Military expert Carlo Masala expects an offensive by the Ukrainian armed forces. Masala said on Friday in the stern podcast "Ukraine – the situation": "The Ukrainians have no other alternative than to start this counter-offensive in the next few weeks." The Russian army is digging its way into Ukrainian territory kilometer after kilometer. Ultimately, if the war went this way, the Russians would take control of the entire area from Crimea to the Donbass. "That's where this counter-offensive has to come from, if Ukraine - at the level of state army against state army - wants to continue this war in order to reconquer territories," expects the politics professor at the Bundeswehr University in Munich.
dr Carlo Masala is Professor of International Politics at the Bundeswehr University in Munich.
In addition, the Ukrainian leadership has "leaned rhetorically at least very far out of the window" in recent weeks. He recalls statements such as: "We will take back Crimea, we will take back Donbass." These are "statements directed inwards to keep the soldiers' morale up. If nothing follows militarily now, then of course Ukraine risks disappointment and war-weariness increasing."
