Was Ukraine helped enough by allies? The Romanian general decorated by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan has the answer

Ukraine is in a difficult situation on the front, and Kiev and some analysts claim that this also happens because the allies did not support the Ukrainians enough. But there are other voices, including top US and NATO generals, who point out that the Ukrainians did not listen to the advice of Western advisers and used the wrong tactics. In an interview for “Adevărul”, General (r) Dan Grecu has some interesting explanations.

The United States Congress recently unblocked a massive aid package for Ukraine, amounting to more than 60 billion dollars. At the same time, the Europeans also deliver arms worth tens of billions of euros and allocate huge funds to Kiev, but the Ukrainians are always dissatisfied and demand more. Explainable to a point, their reaction ends up disturbing in some cases, especially since the allies’ resources are not unlimited either, and many countries have run out of ammunition or certain weapons after sending them to the front.

In addition, there was and is little talk about the fact that the Ukrainians are running out of human resources, even though the Government in Kiev has taken a number of measures to attract new recruits, including lowering the age of enlistment from 27 to 25. years. The Brits at The Telegraph present the whole situation best. The bad news for Ukrainians is that fewer and fewer people agree to fight, and the losses at the front cannot be replaced by the few recruits who do agree to join the army.

Ben Wallace, former Secretary General of Defense in Great Britain, a country that supported and supports Ukraine enormously, had a similar reaction. According to The Guardian, Wallace pointed out to the Ukrainians, who were always asking for more weapons, that the Allies could not deliver anything anytime and in virtually unlimited quantities.

In the same situation was Jake Sullivan, adviser on national security issues of the United States and one of the most influential people in the White House. Sullivan asked the Ukrainians for “more gratitude” as the US has pumped tens of billions of dollars into Ukraine, not to mention a military arsenal worth tens of billions more.

This did not stop Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba from launching a furious attack on US generals and services, who had said that Ukraine had ignored allied advisers and approached the wrong tactics, leading to the failure of the counter-offensive. Then Kuleba even denied the obvious defeats and heard the allies that they did not have enough patience and did not support Kiev enough.

A balanced view

“Truth” turned to General Dan Grecu, decorated by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, to clarify to what extent the losses of the Ukrainians, last year and this year, can be blamed on those who helped them.

He also commented on one of the all too common claims that the Ukrainians were helped just enough not to lose this war yet and to be able to inflict losses on Russia, but not enough to win.

“Personally, I have no idea of ​​another war in which a third party provides as much support to a belligerent as happened in the case of Ukraine after February 24, 2022. The extended West has provided military, humanitarian, structural and other aid in amount of hundreds of billions of dollars, with the United States and the European Union in the foreground, as the individual contributions of other states amount in some cases to sums of the order of billions”.
says General Grecu.

He also mentions that certain states have donated only their old Soviet-sourced weapons or manufactured according to old standards. Conversely, there are countries that have gone so far as to donate their entire arsenal to Ukraine and remain virtually vulnerable to a hypothetical attack. This is, for example, the case of Denmark, which announced that it had donated its entire artillery to Ukraine.

“If we are talking strictly about military equipment, it is states from the former Warsaw Pact that have made available to Ukraine the entire available arsenal of armaments and ammunition manufactured according to Soviet standards, as Western European states have declared that they have reached “the bottom of the bag” through the deliveries made, crossing this limit endangering their national security itself”, adds the general.

He also recalls the reactions of Ben Wallace and Jacke Sullivan, who expressed their opinions, at times, disturbed by the attitude of the Ukrainians.

“Are Ukrainians unhappy? Probably yes, especially considering the reactions of some Ukrainian leaders, led by Foreign Minister Kuleba and presidential adviser Podoliak, who have often shown arrogance and even insolence, causing irritation in European chancelleries, but also across the Ocean . Their claims produced a lot of backlash, for example Ben Wallace, the former UK defense secretary, told Ukrainian leaders something like “like it or not, but people want to see some gratitude too”, claiming that Ukraine has a habit of treating its allies, including Britain, as if they were an Amazon warehouse with lists of weapons requests and that’s it, while Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, argued that “the American people deserves a certain degree of gratitude»”.

The mistakes of the Ukrainians

General Dan Grecu also agrees with the fact that a lot of mistakes were made regarding the counteroffensive last summer. As always, those urging caution and well-thought-out action against Russia were silenced or accused of being too pessimistic, and politics prevailed over military expertise. An example of this was the dismissal of the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, Valery Zalujni, after he had stated that the counteroffensive could be a failure and that Ukraine did not have the strength to defeat Russia.

“I also agree that the planning of the offensive launched in June 2023 started from overly optimistic premises and had gaps, one of the biggest being the dissipation of effort on three offensive directions, instead of a concentrated strike on a single strategic direction”says General Grecu.

He recalls that the same mistake was made earlier by the Russians, but the Ukrainians did not learn anything from the huge errors of the enemy.

“Let’s not forget that the Russians also made the same mistake at the beginning of the war, attacking in seven directions, having to give up three of them quite quickly (Kiev, Chernihiv and Sumi) and withdraw from a fourth (Kharkov) in the autumn of 2022. It is equally true that the fortified defense organized by the Russians in the south of Ukraine contributed substantially to the failure of the counteroffensive in the general direction of Zaporozhye-Melitopol”concludes General Dan Grecu.

Who is General Dan Grecu?

A fine military analyst and with indisputable experience, General (r) Dan Grecu has studied in Canada, Belgium and Italy and has a doctorate in military sciences and intelligence. He was head of the National Team at the American Central Command for the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also a military observer in the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea and head of the Romanian Liaison Team at the Southern Regional Command of ISAF in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

It should also be added that General Dan Grecu has numerous national and international medals, and among the latter are the US Army Commendation Medal, the UN Medal with the sign “2 silver” for the UNMEE mission and the NATO Medal for “non article five” operations.