The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, planned a bold counteroffensive in 2022 in the south of Ukraine, which never happened. The US urged Ukraine to focus on another offensive target.
What was planned by Zaluzhnyi in 2022
Business Insider informs about this regarding the new book of The Wall Street Journal correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov, Our Enemies Will Vanish.
This counteroffensive could reportedly change the war for better or worse. The plan was to cut the so-called "land bridge" from the Russian Federation to Crimea in the Zaporizhzhia region to isolate Russian forces on the peninsula.
At that time, Russia had not yet built extensive minefields and fortifications that would prevent a counteroffensive in 2023.
The publication writes that such an approach would still be a difficult challenge because the breakthrough must be deep and wide enough to prevent a Russian counterattack.
But if the Ukrainian plan worked, it could allow the Ukrainians to use their momentum after the battle for Kyiv and Russian losses elsewhere and, as Trofimov writes, "deprive Moscow of its greatest prize in the war."
The US feared the risks of Zaluzhnyi's plan
Ukraine asked the US to provide 90 additional howitzers and sufficient artillery ammunition.
From the US point of view, writes Trofimov, "failure was probable, and its consequences potentially catastrophic." Such a risky move could lead to strategic losses, and afterwards, Russia could take the rest of the Zaporizhzhia region and later the Dnipro.
The USA pushed Ukraine to focus on the liberation of Kherson. It was a safer option, and the stakes were lower. The Armed Forces eventually forced the Russians to retreat from the city across the Dnipro River.
In the fall of 2023, Ukraine launched a counteroffensive on Zaporizhzhia, hoping to reach the Sea of Azov, but this happened a year later than Zaluzhnyi had planned. And this time, Russia was more prepared, having built fortifications and minefields.
Experts and observers of the war estimate that if Ukraine had started its counteroffensive earlier, these fortifications would not have been so extensive.
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