According to the reserve colonel of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and analyst Petro Chernyk, receiving military aid packages from Western partners will allow the Ukrainian military to launch a counteroffensive already this year.
What is known about the probability of a new AFU's offensive this year
According to Chernyk, this year's AFU offensive will be possible under four conditions.
He noted that, first of all, Western partners should permit Ukraine to use their weapons for strikes on military and strategic targets on the territory of the Russian Federation.
If we were allowed to use ATACMS missiles to strike the concentration of troops, it would be most useful in the northern direction. Opposite the Sumy and Kharkiv regions, up to 53,000 personnel are concentrated, in the trenches and dugouts they can only be really reached with cluster munitions, the analyst emphasized.
Chernyk expressed his belief that the Western partners can abandon the established "red lines," as they did previously regarding the supply of tanks and aircraft.
What does Ukraine need to succeed in the south?
At the same time, the analyst warned that the coming weeks and months will be decisive in the criminal war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine.
According to him, persistent dry weather will allow the Ukrainian military to go on the offensive, break through the defence of the Russian Federation's occupation army, and advance to the northern Azov region.
Chernyk noted that such an operation could be carried out provided a sufficient number of long-range ATACMS missiles, EW, artillery systems and modern Western fighters are obtained.
If all four factors came together, we could break through the Surovikin line by conditional September. But here everything depends exclusively on the number of high-quality weapons, emphasised the analyst.
According to him, the Ukrainian military launched a counteroffensive without air superiority last year.
If Ukraine began to work with a large number of ammunition and missiles on the enemy's rear and railways in the South, the exhausted Russian army could be pushed out of this bridgehead.
