General Ben Hodges: 'Russian Forces Are Exhausted'

• 14.09.2022, 14:23

Former US military commander called the factors that became the key to the lightning success of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kharkiv region.

The successful counter-attack of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kharkiv region can be explained by three things. First, the Russian forces are exhausted, and have no will to fight.

This point of view was expressed by the former commander of US troops in Europe, General Ben Hodges in an interview with Deutsche Welle. In his opinion, the military assistance of the West and the professionalism of the Ukrainian command also contributed to the success of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

“First of all, the Russian forces are exhausted, their logistics are exhausted, leaders are being killed, and we’ve watched for the last couple of months the deterioration of morale and the fighting spirit of the Russian forces, that is, they don’t have the will to fight,” the General said.

Secondly, according to him, there is an input of the weapons provided by the West, in particular, the long-ranged rocket systems, into the success of the Ukrainian counter-offensive.

The Western weapons were very helpful in disrupting or destroying the Russian logistics, Russian artillery, Russian command posts, really creating a lot of problems in their rear areas, which makes it “difficult for them to figure out what is going on and react,” Hodges explained.

“And the third thing is the credit to the Ukrainian General Staff and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. They are disciplined, they’ve done a good job of protecting information, what we call operation security,” the General said.

He added that the Ukrainian military deceived the Russians on where the main attack was coming, openly talking about an attack in Kherson, when in reality the main attack was coming from the north.

“So, really, top level of execution of operational design,” Hodges noted, having confirmed that the counter-offensive in the South was a trick to deceive the enemy into weakening its defense near Kharkiv.

According to him, “the Russians were taken in deception, as were many other observers”, so they started shifting their forces down south, to Kherson.

“Of course, Kherson is very important, and eventually we’ll see Ukrainian forces getting through there as well. But the real purpose, as it appears to me, is that they wanted the Russians to focus on Kherson, this is what we call reflexive control. And they created a much weaker place where Ukrainians could actually attack,” the General explained.