The professor of military strategy at the National Defense University of Sweden says that one of the reasons for the failure of the summer offensive of the Ukrainian military was an overestimation of their combat capability, reports the Finnish newspaper Iltalehti.

“I thought they were better,” Lt. Col. Joakim Paasikivi said about the Ukrainian military in an interview with Svenska Dagbladet.

“(The situation) looks bleaker,” he says, adding that despite the tanks and combat vehicles received from the West, the mechanized forces of Ukraine were not sufficiently prepared, which explains the failure of the counteroffensive.

The professor of military strategy also noted that the inability of the Ukrainian mechanized forces, in turn, is connected with the fact that Ukraine does not have the ability to control the airspace.

The Swedish lieutenant colonel, one of the Nordic country’s most quoted military figures since the start of Russia’s invasion last year, admitted he was also wrong about the Russian army’s defensive capabilities and said the defense lines it had built had proved to be “very strong”.

Swedish lieutenant colonel says military makes decisions based on ‘uncertain evidence’

However, Paasikivi says he does not regret being optimistic about the Ukrainian offensive’s chances of success.

“[Acele prognoze] were within the limits of the possible. I had high hopes. My entire professional career consisted of making decisions based on uncertain evidence,” says the Swedish officer.

But now Paasikivi says that the Ukrainian military’s chances of another successful offensive are small and that “its lifeline is the support of Western countries.”

He also issued a warning to Sweden’s western partners, who are still awaiting the ratification of its NATO membership by Turkey and Hungary.

“If we do not support Ukraine enough, we will make it so that we will have to fight by ourselves. We understand that the situation is urgent (…) because Russia wants to change the world,” he said.

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