Posted on 07/16/23
| News Source: i24
Heavy losses forced Ukraine to rethink its strategy and slow down to preserve men and weaponry
In the first two weeks of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, its army lost nearly 20 percent of the weaponry, a report said on Saturday.
American and European officials told The New York Times that the damaged and destroyed weapons include some of the Western fighting machines supplied to Ukraine, namely tanks and armored personnel carriers. The rate of losses, however, dropped to 10 percent in subsequent weeks of the campaign, according to the officials.
They added that heavy losses forced Ukraine to rethink its strategy and slow down to preserve men and weaponry needed for the major offensive push is still to come. Kiev also changed tactics focusing on wearing down the Russian army with artillery and long-range missiles, the officials explained.
Nevertheless, the counteroffensive has slowed down and even stopped in some areas where its struggling to advance against Russia’s defenses, minefields and tank traps. The situation is especially difficult in the south of the country where farm fields are littered with mines.
Ukrainian forces have so far retaken only five of the 60 miles of territory that they need free in order to reach the Black Sea in the south. However, American officials said that the Ukrainian army has started advancing again, learning to navigate minefields and carefully calculating casualty risks.
They hope the recently approved delivery of cluster munitions from the U.S. would help speed up the progress. Earlier on Wednesday, the British defense minister Ben Wallace that although the counteroffensive is “not as fast” as they hoped, “it’s not catastrophically behind schedule.”
“It is doing what anyone else would do, having to fight through minefields towards the Russian line,” he added.