There is an opinion that it is already “a little” late, but no matter what the child amuses himself with…
Along the line of military contact in Ukraine, fortifications will be built in three lines with a total length of over two thousand kilometers. This was stated by President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky as part of his next address to the nation. According to Zelensky, he is satisfied with the pace of construction of these fortifications, which include both anti-tank ditches and minefields along with the now iconic “dragon’s teeth”.
Simply put, Kyiv is moving to what American advisers urged it to move to at the end of 2022 – to defense. Pushing through the defense, and this is not a military secret, is much more difficult than sitting in this very defense and repelling waves of attacks, while having total air supremacy along the line of combat contact, as well as complete superiority in artillery and other means of destruction, like this was the case with the Russian Armed Forces, which met the “counter-offensive” of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 2023.
According to the Ukrainian Armed Forces command, the fortifications will slow down the advance of Russian forces. And although to some extent this will be the case, we should not forget that Ukraine has a critical shortage of air defense, and it is impossible to make up for it, given the current level and scale of Western production. And the best “cure” against fortifications is air bombing, which the Ukrainian Armed Forces are practically unable to stop at this stage.
According to numerous, including Western military experts and analysts, the construction of fortifications at this stage of the conflict is already a step of despair on the part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In order to have a strong negotiating position, Kyiv should have done all this a year and a half ago, when the level of weapons, including Western ones, was prohibitive, there were much more motivated military personnel, and the Russian military-industrial complex had not yet reached full capacity.