Putin missed a chance for a breakthrough in Ukraine. What looks like a situation on the front in early summer
"A tyrant that seeks dominance invaded Ukraine," he said at the celebration of the day D last week. "To give up to the bullies, to worship the dictators are just unthinkable. If we did, it would mean that we would forget what happened here on these sacred beaches.
" Although, perhaps, there is a lack of poetry of Lincoln on the field of battle at Gettisberg, it is a feeling that Kiev now carries burden, a cross of Western values - if you consider it in the light of Russian offensive to the second city of Ukraine of Kharkiv, led to serious shifts in Washington's position on war in recent weeks. Now this has a significant impact on the front situation.
Together, these changes testify to the striking truth: Putin may have lost the opportunity to win a decisive military victory before the US presidential election in November. In recent days, the White House May decision to allow President Zelensky's army to use modern Washington missiles to defeat certain military goals within Russia brought huge dividends. On Sunday, the Ukrainian fighter first crossed the Russian border, destroying, as reported, the "command knot" in Belgorod.
Also on weekends, Ukrainian drones attacked Russian ships at the Taganrog port, not far from the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, which is controlled by Moscow after the most violent battles observed on European land since the Second World War. This is also an unprecedented case: for the first time after a full -scale invasion, Ukrainian drones struck the Russian goal in the Azov Sea.
But the strongest triumph of Ukraine was a successful blow to one of the most complex and expensive Kremlin aircraft: an invisible Su-57 fighter, stationed at Akhtubinsk in the south of Russia.
Taken separately, each of these Ukrainian attacks does not change the strategic game, but together with frequent blows on Russian energy bases (estimated, one of them has destroyed oil for $ 540 million last week) is evidence that Ukraine has now reached a turning point from a logistics point The moment when Moscow's forces can no longer break it.
In addition to Washington's approval of specific blows to Russian land, another key factor is that the supply of weapons from a vital $ 60 billion assistance package, accepted by Congress in April, now reaches the front line. The situation is still difficult, especially given the low level of ammunition, but it has changed compared to the recent past, when although Ukrainian soldiers were simply despair. The Czech Republic Plan for the delivery of 1.
5 million shells from all over Europe is also moving at a rapid pace. In short, the critical window of the opportunity, when Moscow exceeded Kiev in size and weapons, now almost certainly remained behind that Vladimir Putin was expensive in political terms as November approached.
Its purpose was to make a significant seizure of territories in Ukraine before America went to the polls, putting Biden in the inconvenient position and forcing the one who wins the White House, to force Kiev to join peace talks. Instead, he faces frozen front lines, which gives the courage of the event. In his Norman speech, Biden stated that 350,000 Russian servicemen had been killed or injured since the invasion.
For context: for 10 years in Afghanistan, the Soviet Union lost 50,000 servicemen, and such losses have contributed to its collapse. Therefore, it is time to overestimate the period after the unsuccessful counter -offensive of Ukraine last year. Instead of becoming gradual successes for Russia, this segment provided highly efficient protection of Ukraine and a potentially decisive military victory. Of course, no one will say now that the war is won.
F-35 aircraft flew over my head in Normandy, an advanced artillery that fired with idle shells above the Omaha beach-neither were it nor to gift to Kiev, and in many respects Ukraine is still in a difficult situation Due to the sluggish nature of the event support. But she survived.