The sparrows are whistling it from the rooftops: Ukraine is preparing a major counter-offensive. Several experts suspect that it will be about Crimea.
Kiev – The world has been waiting for the next big turn in the Ukraine war for some time: the talk is of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, which is increasingly being hinted at in military movements and the rhetoric of both warring parties.
Like a former adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Newsweek said Kiev’s counter-offensive will target a strategically important point: the bridge over the Kerch Strait, which connects Russia with Crimea. One of Kiev’s goals could be an operation in the south of the country. The Russians are to be cut off from the land corridor to Crimea, as Oleksiy Arestovich said. In this way, Ukraine could recapture the Black Sea island annexed by Russia in 2014.
Ukraine war: ‘Crimea cannot be held without a land corridor’
Arestovich resigned in January after declaring that a Russian missile that killed 45 people in the city of Dnipro was shot down by Ukrainian air defenses. The Ukrainian Air Defense Forces denied this. Many called for his dismissal for portraying the incident and subsequent victims as Ukraine’s fault.
“Crimea cannot be held without a land corridor,” Arestovich told YouTube channel Feygin Live, which is hosted by lawyer and former Russian opposition politician Mark Feygin. If the narrow isthmus were blocked, the Crimean Bridge would become the only supply canal for the peninsula. Without the bridge, the peninsula would be without help. “We will tear down the Crimean bridge. All this is possible under certain conditions, we are currently arranging the conditions,” Arestovych said.
“Ukraine is coming back and will return to Crimea”
Also, retired US Marine Corps Col. Mark Cancian, senior adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told Newsweek that Ukraine will likely try to cut off Crimea, destroy the Kerch Strait Bridge and ” just squeezing them over time to make them unsustainable.”
Likewise, Andrii Chernyak, a representative of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Service, said that “it is strongly recommended to leave occupied Crimea while this option is still available”. And further: “Ukraine is coming back and will return to Crimea,” he told ArmyInforma Ukrainian news agency.
In October 2022, the bridge was already the center of attention due to an explosion. This damaged a key supply route for Russian forces amid the Kremlin’s slacking war effort in Ukraine. Russia’s ruler Vladimir Putin blamed Ukrainian secret services for the explosion.
But there is one problem for Ukraine, and the starting time of the offensive probably depends on it: The weather: “Until the weather improves, there will be no counter-offensive,” said a lieutenant of the 43rd separate artillery brigade New York Times. “The vehicles would get stuck, and then what do we do when the shooting starts?” So it’s still a matter of patience – as far as the Crimean bridge is concerned, and the counter-offensive in general. (cgsc)
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