The war for the survival of Ukraine enters another critical phase as its summer offensive gathers momentum. The fighting along the 620-mile front is tough, with the Russians relying on huge defences, tank traps and ditches, and the Ukrainians searching for a weak point to make a decisive breakthrough.
The withdrawal of Wagner mercenaries, and the dust storm raised in Rostov and Moscow by their swashbuckling boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, have proved a welcome distraction. But it doesn’t seem to have weakened the Russian forces on the front line.
Prigozhin’s comic opera mutiny may be over but for him the show goes on. He is still ahead of the curve in the information and publicity game. Bloggers and supporters yesterday reported him back in Moscow negotiating the handover of heavy weapons, and talking to military commanders. No doubt he lost no opportunity to slam the performance of Russia’s military command in the war, and by implication the political leadership — without mentioning Vladimir Putin by name, of course.
There is something of a mystery about how Prigozhin has been behaving. It is evident that he tipped off US and British intelligence that he was about to pull Wagner fighters back from Ukraine into Russia. It was as if he wanted to know how the allies and Ukraine might react, and how it would change the war. Washington and Whitehall knew two days ahead of the march into Rostov last Friday.
This suggests that the Wagner chief has good contacts in the West — though there is no sign that Western nations helped him. His continued immunity also suggests that he might have support, or sympathy at least, among the Russian forces and security services. Putin denounced him as a traitor who had to be crushed in his panicky television address. Yet within hours he was being offered a pardon and his troops safe passage to Belarus.
Recently Prigozhin has been close to General Sergey Surovikin, the former Russian commander-in-chief in Ukraine who has not been seen for days. The Pentagon believes that Surovikin was told by Prigozhin what he was about to do.
On the ground in Ukraine the Russian campaign continues with familiar cynicism. Cities and civilians are targeted by drones and missiles. The latest horror show was hitting a well-known pizza parlour in the eastern city of Kramatorsk. The bombardment of the cities aims to tie up air defences like the US Patriot systems so they cannot be used to protect the front-line forces now moving into the main phase of the summer offensive.
Ukrainian forces need the support of modern attack aircraft and attack helicopters
Ukrainian forces are advancing at some half a dozen key points. They need the support of modern attack aircraft like the F16 and attack helicopters such as the Cobra or Apache. Why the potency of the attack helicopters wasn’t factored in by Western advisers and trainers seems a critical lapse. President Biden cannot afford to dither on this much longer.
Ukrainian ground forces have now crossed the Dnipro into Kherson, and in the east captured a village in Donetsk garrisoned by Russians and separatists since 2014.
Momentum is gathering and the Ukrainians appear to be preparing to commit their main force and reserve in the next few days. It will be make or break — for this year, at least.
This is why the allies need to up the tempo of support. The test for the West’s resolves comes in a fortnight at the Nato summit in Vilnius.
