The crucial city of Melitopol in the southeast won’t be reached by Ukraine’s counteroffensive, according to the US intelligence community. If this assessment turns out to be accurate, Kyiv won’t achieve its main goal of severing Russia’s land bridge to Crimea in this year’s push, The Washington Post reported.
The assessment is based on Russia’s brutal proficiency in defending occupied territory through a phalanx of minefields and trenches, and it’s likely to lead to finger-pointing in Kyiv and Western capitals over why a counteroffensive that involved tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons and military hardware from the West failed to achieve its objectives.
According to US officials, the Ukrainian forces will maintain their distance from the city as they approach Melitopol from the town of Robotyne, more than 50 miles away. The Washington Post conducted confidential interviews with US, Western, and Ukrainian government officials in order to discuss classified military operations. A comment from the US Directorate of National Intelligence was declined.