As the counteroffensive breaks down the Russian lines, Britain must make sure the West stands firm
Whisper it if you need. Dare to think it. But champion it you must. Ukraine’s counteroffensive is succeeding. Slowly but surely, the Ukrainian armed forces are breaking through the Russian lines. Sometimes yard by yard, sometimes village by village, Ukraine has the momentum and is pressing forward.
The men and women of the Ukrainian army are, once again, proving to us in Nato how much we have underestimated them. First, the Establishment doubted their ability to defend their nation from the initial Russian invasion. Too many states waited to see which way the wind would blow. The groupthinkers, with their computers and “Russia experience”, calculated that they could only hold on for a few weeks.
Having been proved wrong, they switched their pessimism to the counteroffensive. But they failed to grasp the importance of the human factor. They failed to spot in the Ukrainians the same spirit we possessed in 1939. They failed to recall Alan Turing’s quote that “Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine.” They failed to understand that, in war, the most precious commodity of all is hope.
Since the summer, Ukraine has again been learning on the job. Its forces are adapting tactics, absorbing lessons, and making the best of the equipment we have all gifted them.