Europe is not seriously discussing options for military support for Ukraine and is reluctant to step up assistance to Kiev, while, at the same time, with the current level of support, Ukraine has no chance of winning the conflict in the medium term, the Financial Times newspaper cited a senior European official as saying. This comes following Ukraine’s failed offensive against Kursk, which US officials believe will only lead to Russian President Vladimir Putin acting “decisively.”
As the publication notes, citing a senior European official, while there is a “recognition” in the European Union that European countries will have to do more to arm Ukraine, there is “no substantive discussion of options” for assistance.
The newspaper also notes that with the current level of Western military aid and mobilisation in Ukraine, Kiev has no chance of winning in the medium term and that the decision to attack Russia’s Kursk region could cost Ukraine dearly and have serious consequences.
According to the outlet, Ukrainian soldiers and Western analysts worry that throwing scarce resources at Kursk will make it harder for Ukraine to hold on to strategically important positions in Donetsk and as Russia continues to advance in recent days, Kiev risks overcommitting itself, for political reasons, to its new offensive, just as it did last year with its doomed defence of Bakhmut, now called Artyomovsk.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian forces crossed the border into Russia and launched an offensive in the Kursk region, capturing villages, killing civilians, and injuring at least another 121 people, including ten children.
Putin said the Ukrainian action was another large-scale provocation and accused Ukraine of indiscriminately shooting at civilians. Several senior Russian officials have warned that Kiev should expect severe consequences for carrying out such an operation.
However, it is not only the Kremlin warning of major retaliations, with former US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan telling CNN that Ukraine had crossed a “red line” by attacking the Kursk region and that Putin will act as decisively as possible to expel Ukrainian forces from Russian soil.
“[The Russians may think that] the United States was involved in what they call ‘serious provocation or terrorist incident’ and that this is some kind of red line that the Ukrainians have crossed,” he said, responding to a question about the recent actions of the Ukrainian army.
Sullivan also added that he expects Putin to “respond as decisively as he can” to expel Ukrainian troops from Russian territory.
The diplomat’s word quickly came true with Russian general and commander of the Akhmat special forces regiment Apty Alaudinov announcing on August 14 that the main units of the Ukrainian military in the Kursk region had been stopped and that most of their equipment had been destroyed.
“At the moment, I can basically say that these [Ukrainian] forces and means are already almost completely blocked, so the blockade from all directions is being completed. Somewhere behind us, there are isolated sabotage groups […] they are somewhere in the forests — we have recorded this. But the main forces of the enemy have already been stopped, their blockade is being completed,” Alaudinov told Russia’s Pervy TV channel.
The Financial Times reported that Kiev knows it will come under increasing pressure to negotiate an end to the war, especially if Donald Trump returns to the White House after November’s presidential election, but not only. Europe fears that if re-elected, Republican candidate Donald Trump will cut aid to Kiev and pressure Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky to accept a peace deal with Russia.
With European industry unable to meet the needs of the Ukrainian military and Putin promising a “decisive” response to Ukraine’s attack on Kursk, things are about to become all the more difficult for the Kiev regime, especially with the end of summer only a few weeks away, meaning the onset of another difficult winter under wartime conditions.
Rather than demonstrating Ukraine’s capabilities, the attack on Kursk only shows the Kiev regime’s desperation as Russian forces continue to liberate more territory in the east with little serious opposition. Although it is uncertain whether Trump will win the election, what is almost certain is that the upcoming winter will be the last winter of the war as Russia’s superior military and industrial capabilities will collapse what scarce resources Ukraine has left.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: © Sputnik. Kursk Region Acting Governor Press Office
