With progress so sluggish, the $150 billion spent by the US in Ukraine is a “very dangerous funding,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter mentioned
Ukraine’s failing counteroffensive has not delivered the outcomes that the White Home anticipated, and Kiev’s lack of ability to penetrate Russian defensive strains ought to function a “wake-up name” in Washington, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh wrote on Thursday.
Citing battlefield statistics obtained from an unnamed supply, Hersh claimed that Ukrainian forces have solely managed to seize two sq. miles of Russian-held land over the past ten days of preventing. Within the two weeks beforehand, he continued, the Ukrainian army took solely 44 sq. miles of territory, a lot of it open land situated earlier than the primary of Russia’s a number of defensive strains.
With Russia holding 40,000 sq. miles of previously Ukrainian land, an “knowledgeable official” informed Hersh that “it could take [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky’s army 117 years to rid the nation of Russian occupation.”
The time has come for US President Joe Biden to publicly acknowledge that “the estimated greater than $150 billion that his administration has put up [to arming Ukraine] to this point turned out to be a really dangerous funding,” the veteran journalist concluded, including that the “looming catastrophe in Ukraine… must be a wake-up name” for US lawmakers prepared at hand Kiev billions of {dollars} “within the hope of a miracle that won’t arrive.”
Ukraine launched its long-anticipated counteroffensive in early June, utilizing German-made Leopard 2 tanks, US-supplied Bradley Infantry Preventing Automobiles, and different Western {hardware} to strike at Russian positions alongside the entrance line from Donetsk to Kherson.
The offensive value Kiev dearly, with the Russian Safety Council estimating Ukrainian losses at 13,000 troops as of final week. Attacking by way of minefields and with out air assist, based on Moscow, Ukrainian forces have failed to beat the multi-layered community of trenches, obstacles, and armored emplacements constructed by Russia since final yr.
American, Ukrainian, and NATO officers have admitted that the counteroffensive is continuing slower than anticipated. With continued Western assist probably hinging on a profitable pushback of Russian forces, officers in Kiev have alternated between blaming the West for not offering sufficient weapons, and promising that the offensive to this point has been a “preview” of a bigger operation to come back.
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