The counteroffensive Ukraine launched against Russia has so far proven less victorious than many in the West would have liked, despite Kyiv kicking off its counterattack by destroying six of Putin’s “world-beater” missiles in May.
Despite the slow progress, U.S. officials shouldn’t count Ukraine out yet, according to retired U.S. Army general and former CIA director David Petraeus, who told CNN he is “guardedly optimistic, with qualifications” that Ukraine will succeed.
“A lot of those [qualifications] have to do with how well the Russians will do once the Ukrainians are able to crack the lines in a couple of places, which I think they will be able to do,” Petraeus said.
What Petraeus Believes: “The truth is [the U.S.] could not have done this. In fact, the only two times where we’ve done anything remotely like this, and we didn’t face anywhere near the kind of defenses that the Russians have established, was in the Gulf War,” he told the outlet.
In an opinion article featured in The Washington Post, co-authored with military expert Frederick Kagan, Petraeus said that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is still in the initial stage, being “just 10 weeks into what is likely to last at least four more months.”
“Observers would be wise to temper their pessimism. War does not proceed in a linear fashion,” he wrote, adding that “Defenders can hold for a long time and then suddenly break, allowing an attacker to make rapid gains before the defense solidifies further to the rear.”
What Petraeus Says Ukraine Is Up Against: Comparing Ukraine’s counteroffensive to the U.S.-led wars in Iraq, Ukraine has more disadvantages and Russia has a more formidable army.
“Ukraine has none of the advantages the United States had in those operations. In both Iraq-related cases, coalition forces benefited from air supremacy, while Ukrainian aircraft cannot operate over Russian lines,” Petraeus said.
“Russian forces have prepared extensive defenses in depth” including what he called an “elastic defense, in which its troops initially fall back and then counterattack once the Ukrainian forces take losses and begin to tire.”
Despite the difficult battles Ukraine has ahead of it, Petraeus sees a path toward victory for Ukraine.
“Ukraine is applying pressure on their opponent until something breaks, at which point they will commit their reserves and strike,” he wrote, adding Russian front-line forces have become exhausted from the battles and that it’s unknown how strong Russia’s secondary defense lines are.
“There is good reason to doubt that the Russians have large numbers of high-quality soldiers holding them,” Petraeus wrote.
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