Ukraine Shows It Can Win Without Western Advice: Retiring NATO General

General Philip M. Breedlove, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, told the Kyiv Post that he saw the Ukraine operation as a success.

He said the move would resonate beyond the territory itself, creating big problems for Russian President Vladimir Putin in terms of how ordinary Russians view their leaders and military.

It showed how Ukraine could achieve such big victories without much Western involvement, he said.

He said that “the raid was taken without much guidance from the West, and look how well it worked.”

The attack on Kursk was made apparently without providing prior information to the Western partners.

Breedlove, who is also a retired US Air Force general, compared Ukraine’s success at Kursk to its big counteroffensive last year, in which Ukraine failed to retake large swaths of territory.

He said that with that counteroffensive, “I think the West and others are putting a lot of limits on Ukraine.”

He said he believed Ukraine would have been more successful if it could have been as bold as it was at Kursk.

“I think if Ukraine could have used this kind of initiative last year, we would have had a different result.”

Western limits

While Western countries have committed billions of dollars in arms to Ukraine, they are also placing limits on their use, which has proven frustrating.

Ukraine was initially not allowed to use Western weapons on targets inside Russia, leaving Russia free to position its weapons just across the border. This restriction was relaxed in May.

But many allies, including the US, still ban Ukraine from using long-range weapons in Russia, limiting Ukraine’s ability to strike its highest-value targets there.

Breedlove said he believed Western policymakers had limited Ukraine because Putin had convinced them that if Ukraine won, “there will be huge consequences.”

“Putin’s most successful weapon in this war is intimidation, or, in military parlance, his ability to restrict Western action through his threats.”

Breedlove said: “I think this war will end exactly the way Western politicians want it to end. Right now, Western policymakers cannot morally or intellectually understand what a Ukrainian victory would mean. Putin won, the Russian army was defeated.”

He said the Western limits on Ukraine should change: “If Ukraine is able to strike Russian equipment and personnel before they reach Ukraine, I think Ukraine can win this war.”

Breedlove said he thinks it’s too early to say for sure whether Kursk is “a great strategic success,” although he thinks it is.

He said that in this incursion, Ukraine “dictated the terms of this fight,” a stark contrast to much of the war, when its focus was on containing Russia.

George Barros, a Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, told BI last month that it was unclear how the swift operation would end, but said it was positive for Ukraine after months of bitter war during which it was almost entirely on the defensive.

“Now there are no more Ukrainians lying on their backs for more than nine months at a time just doing their best to sort through,” he said.