In the spring, Russia will launch an offensive to which Ukraine will respond with a counterattack to return the occupied territories, which will be a turning point in the war, according to the White House. This was reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday, February 14.
The publication notes that U.S. officials, including deputy national security adviser Jon Finer, deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman and undersecretary of defense Colin Kahl, visited Ukraine last month and explicitly stated to Kyiv the critical nature of the next few months. A week before them, CIA Director William Burns visited Ukraine and informed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about his vision of Russia's military plans in the coming months, and emphasized the importance of the moment.
“The war in recent months has become a slow grind in eastern Ukraine, with neither side gaining the upper hand. Biden officials believe the critical juncture will come this spring, when Russia is expected to launch an offensive and Ukraine mounts a counteroffensive in an effort to reclaim lost territory,” it was said.
“Against that backdrop, Biden’s aides say they are pursuing the best course of action: empowering Ukraine to retake as much territory as possible in coming months before sitting down with Putin at the negotiating table,” the publication added.
Military experts see a wide range of possible results in the coming months due to the unstable situation and cannot predict whether the war will end through negotiations, whether it will drag on and become one of the versions of frozen conflicts, WSJ concluded.
As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on February 8, NSDC Secretary Oleksii Danilov said that Russia could launch an offensive in the Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia Regions to seize the initiative in the war.
On February 9, the Office of the President of Ukraine said that Russia had launched a new offensive in the east of Ukraine.
On February 11, the representative of the Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Andrii Cherniak said that Russia does not have resources for a large-scale offensive on the anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
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