Ukraine will launch a counteroffensive during April-May, attacking Russian forces in several directions at once, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said in an interview with Estonian news outlet ERR, adding that the timing of its start is also contingent on weather conditions.
“You will see Leopards in a counterattack by the decision of our General Staff. It is already planned in several directions,” Reznikov said.
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He added that the start of the offensive would also depend on finding the most appropriate moment, particularly as regards favorable weather conditions. “In the spring, our land is very wet. I think we will see them [Leopards] in April-May,
Reznikov believes that 2023 will bring positive changes to Ukraine with the Defense Forces liberating the temporarily occupied territories, as happened in the Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, and Kherson regions.
At the same time, in a recent interview with Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, published on Mar. 25, Ukraine's President Zelensky admitted that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are still not ready to launch a major counteroffensive due to the shortage of military support.
“We can’t start yet, we can’t send our brave soldiers to the front line without tanks, artillery, and long-range rockets,” he said, because the current situation on the eastern front “is not good.”
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Meanwhile, Reznikov’s American counterpart Lloyd Austin said on March 28 that he’s quite optimistic about the upcoming Ukrainian counteroffensive, given the significant depletion of Russian forces and the arrival of new Western weapons supplies sent to Ukraine.
“The Ukrainians have inflicted significant losses on the Russians and depleted their armored vehicles in a way no one could have imagined. And now we see Russia decommissioning T-54 and T-55 tanks because of the level of losses that the Ukrainians inflicted upon them,” the Pentagon chief stressed.
Last week, the Institute for the Study of War concluded that Ukraine was well positioned to regain the initiative and launch counteroffensives in critical sectors of the current front line, with Russia meanwhile losing momentum.
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