BIG BANG THEORY: Ukraine plan blitzkrieg to re-take Crimea

Top military experts believe that a huge Ukrainian counter-offensive is on the cards now that they have new weaponry from the West.

In interviews with The Sun Online, military analysts including, former British Army Brigadier Ben Barry and retired Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon revealed their thoughts on Kyiv’s next move.

For months now Ukraine’s strategy has been to contain Russia in highly attritional trench-like warfare, while behind the frontline, a new wave of troops have been training with Western weapons.

British Challenger 2, US-supplied M1 Abrams, and Leopard 2 main battle tanks, together with Stryker and Bradley armoured vehicles, have been provided to give Ukraine the edge over outdated Russian technology.

Ex-Brigadier Barry said a ‘big bang’ counter-offensive is needed to turn the tide against Russia. He commented, ‘Ukraine could kill every Russian soldier within 200 miles of Bakhmut and it wouldn’t change the strategic situation.’

The former commander of US Army Europe, General Ben Hodges believes Ukraine have set their sights much higher than Bakhmut commenting, ‘the key is winning Crimea, that will be the decisive terrain. Once Crimea is liberated, it’s all over, it changes everything. Ukraine knows that it will never be safe without taking back Crimea.’

Hodge believes that Ukraine’s counter-offensive will focus on isolating the Crimean peninsula by severing the Kerch land bridge, the construction of which was one of Putin’s proudest achievements.

‘It will be aimed at breaking this land bridge and more precision weapons to hit targets and make the peninsula untenable for Russian forces.

‘It was never going to be a spring offensive. They’ve been busy training, practising and carefully protecting information, they’re waiting on the right conditions for traffic ability, waiting on the ground to be able to sustain the attack.’

Colonel De Bretton-Gordon added, ‘The Ukrainians are very canny. I’ve been impressed with the way they operate.

‘There isn’t much we can teach them. Obviously we taught them how to use our tanks and artillery but in terms of teaching the generals, they are already very impressive.

It was also revealed today that Spain is due to deliver six Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine ‘in the next few days.’ Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares commented, ‘After that, there will be a second package with four more tanks.’

In addition to the gathering impetus of Ukraine’s forces a new network of ‘Storm Brigades’ is being formed from around 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers.