Military expert expects long drawn-out war in Ukraine
June 14th, 2023A Hungarian-Israeli strategic analyst believes that the first failure of the Ukrainian spring offensive has spared Ukraine a strategic defeat.
In Neokohn, Robert C, Castel, a Hungarian from Transylvania who used to serve in the Israeli Defence Force accepts the Russian claim that Ukrainian troops were repelled late last week when trying to break through towards the Azov Sea. Reacting to the loss of men and armour by Ukraine, he writes that such a defeat may have saved them from a much graver one. Had they broken through, he explains, they would have been left with no other choice than committing their strategic reserves in an effort to reach the Azov Sea and thus cut the Russian forces in the south from those in the east. The Russians could thus have encircled them and inflicted a decisive blow on the Ukrainian military. By repelling the attack, Castel writes, Russian commanders have deprived themselves of the chance of a strategic victory and may have condemned their country to an endless war of attrition.