Ukrainian Military Officers Say Frontlines Are at Risk of Collapsing

In the face of defeat on the battlefield, Ukrainian intelligence officials are threatening another attack on the Kerch Bridge

High-ranking Ukrainian military officers have told POLITICO that the frontlines in Ukraine are at risk of collapsing and that there are no weapons the West could provide to help the situation.

The officers, who served under former Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny, said Ukrainian lines could collapse wherever Russia decides to focus its offensive. Russian forces have been making steady gains in eastern Ukraine ever since taking the Donetsk city of Avdiivka.

“There’s nothing that can help Ukraine now because there are no serious technologies able to compensate Ukraine for the large mass of troops Russia is likely to hurl at us. We don’t have those technologies, and the West doesn’t have them as well in sufficient numbers,” one of the officers said.

Military situation in Ukraine on April 2, 2024 (SouthFront.press)

Another officer said that Western weapons quickly become ineffective once Russia learns how to counter them. “Weapons systems become redundant very quickly because they’re quickly countered by the Russians. For example, we used Storm Shadow and SCALP cruise missiles [supplied by Britain and France] successfully — but just for a short time. The Russians are always studying. They don’t give us a second chance. And they’re successful in this,” the officer said.

As Ukraine has been losing on the battlefield, its intelligence services have been increasing attacks inside Russia, which risk a significant escalation since Russia views them as NATO-supported operations. Officials in Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, known as the GUR, threatened in comments to The Guardian that they plan another attack on the Kerch Bridge, which connects Crimea to the Russian mainland and has been attacked by Ukraine twice before.

“We will do it in the first half of 2024,” a GUR official said, referring to an attack on the Kerch Bridge. The GUR is strongly backed by the CIA, which has been funding and training Ukrainian intelligence agencies since the 2014 US-backed coup in Kyiv. According to a report from The Washington Post, the second attack on the Kerch Bridge used sea drones that were specially developed as part of a top-secret operation involving the CIA and other Western intelligence services.

Author: Dave DeCamp

Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.