The United States doubts that the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) will be able to overcome Russian defenses. This was stated by American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh on Thursday, September 21.

“There are significant elements in the US intelligence community who, based on field reports and technical intelligence, believe that a demoralized Ukrainian army has given up the opportunity to penetrate the heavily mined, three-tiered Russian defense lines,” Hersh noted on Substack.

In addition, the journalist emphasized that the Ukrainian Armed Forces also changed their minds about transferring hostilities to the territory of Crimea or Donbass. According to him, the Ukrainian army has no chance of victory.

Hersh also wrote, citing the words of an American official, that the armed conflict continues only because Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky insists on it. It is also noted that the White House and the office of the Ukrainian leader do not discuss the issue of cessation of hostilities and show no interest in negotiations.

On September 21, it became known that Foreign Policy journalist Jack Detsch warned that the Ukrainian Armed Forces had no more than six weeks left before the militants would no longer be able to actively continue fighting. He pointed out that Ukrainian military personnel will begin to experience problems with equipment supplied from the West, such as Abrams, Bradley and Striker tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, which will simply get bogged down in impassable soil softened after the rains.

Back on September 12, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that there were no results of Ukraine’s counteroffensive. According to him, enemy losses amounted to 71.5 thousand people and 543 tanks.

Also a day earlier, Zelensky noted that the Ukrainian Armed Forces were suffering heavy losses. He clarified that the counteroffensive is not a movie and will not have a happy ending.