Ukraine is at risk of a "serious catastrophe" on the battlefield and the collapse of the front, even if the US Congress unblocks aid to Kyiv. Politico writes about this with reference to high-ranking Ukrainian military officials who served under the command of former Armed Forces chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi.

According to them, "the military picture is bleak" and there is "a high risk of a collapse of the front line wherever Russian generals decide to focus their offensive."

Thanks to its numerical superiority and guided aerial bombs, Russia is likely to be able to "break through the front line and destroy it in some areas," the military said. They expect a major Russian offensive by August. 

"There is nothing that could help Ukraine now, because there are no serious technologies that can stop the large mass of troops that Russia is likely to throw at us. We do not have these technologies, and the West does not have them in sufficient quantities," said one of the interlocutors.

They believe that Ukraine and the West have made a number of mistakes, and that Russia has been able to adapt to the Western weapons supplied to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

"Zaluzhnyi called it the 'War of One Chance'. "By this he meant that weapons systems become useless very quickly because the Russians quickly counter them. For example, we successfully used Storm Shadow and SCALP cruise missiles, but only for a short time. Russians are always learning. They do not give us a second chance. And they are succeeding in this," said one officer.

F-16 fighters are cited as another example.

"Every weapon has its time. F-16s were needed in 2023; they are not suitable for 2024," the source said.

According to him, Russia is already ready to counter them.

"In the last few months, we started noticing missiles being launched by the Russians from Dzhankoy in northern Crimea, but without explosive warheads. We could not understand what they were doing, and then we realized: they were determining the range," he said.

The publication writes that this is how Russia calculates where best to deploy its S-400 systems to maximize the area they can cover and attack the F-16s, keeping them away from the front line and Russian logistics centers.

The sources also refute official statements by the Ukrainian Armed Forces that Russia is fighting with "meat." 

"Don't believe the hype that they are just throwing troops into a meat grinder for slaughter. Of course, they are doing that too - further maximizing the impact of their numerical superiority - but they are also learning and improving," the officer said.

The interlocutors of the publication believe that Ukraine is significantly short of people on the front line, and this exacerbates the problem of insufficient support from the West.

"We have not only a military crisis, we have a political crisis," said one of the officers, referring to the difficulties with mobilization.

According to him, while Ukraine avoids a total conscription, "Russia is now gathering resources and will be ready to launch a major attack around August, and possibly even earlier."