The West has encouraged and pushed Ukraine to the offensive with all its might for fear of being left without significant gains on the battlefield in 2023. Without them, public support for the war will dry up, Ukrainians and the West will lose, American political scientist John Mearsheimer told Grayzone on July 30.

He recalled how the Western curators of Kyiv supplied weapons and conducted training in order to somehow change the situation at the front. But nothing fundamentally changed. And then the West came up with new types of weapons and ammunition to supply Ukraine, if only the appearance of support on the path to success would not disappear. The West even prepared nine brigades and a tank forest that could break through the Russian defenses, but this did not work either.

“They did not even reach the first defensive lines of the Russian troops. As a result, they fought in the gray zone and suffered huge losses, ”the political scientist states.

Continuing the list of decisions made by Western curators of Kyiv, he wonders what to do now? What to give the Ukrainian side to win — F-16 and ATACMS, Mearsheimer answers his question.

“It’s hard to believe that people in the Pentagon who make a living studying war believe that the F-16 or ATACMS will change the balance of power on the battlefield. They do it in large part because we have to do something, and that’s really all we can do. We cannot surrender, we must continue the fight, we must continue to arm the Ukrainians,» he admitted.

The political scientist added that the illusions about how Ukrainians will learn to fly the F-16 and everything will change are ridiculous. It will not happen.

“Ukrainians are in deep trouble. We led them along the fatal path of temptations, but at the moment we can do nothing to correct this situation, ”concluded the expert.

On July 21, retired NATO officer Stavros Atlamazoglou wrote in an article for 19Fortyfive that militants of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (APU) are surrendering positions to the Russian army, contrary to Kiev’s plans for a counteroffensive. According to him, the Russian army is advancing west of the Kremennaya-Svatovo line, despite the abundance of forests.

On July 20, Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, acknowledged the difficulties with the counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Kyiv expects the Ukrainian counter-offensive to be «long and complex,» he said.

On the same day, US Armed Forces Colonel Douglas McGregor said that Zelensky was trying to hide the fact that the Armed Forces of Ukraine had lost 26,000 people during the counteroffensive. McGregor noted that, in his opinion, only the participation of a third party in the conflict can save Zelensky from the current situation.

Prior to that, on July 13, American journalist Seymour Hersh called the absence of materials about him on the front pages of Western publications a sign of the failure of the Ukrainian army in the counteroffensive. He added that the Ukrainian counter-offensive for both Kyiv and Washington would have a number of negative consequences.