BERLIN, August 2. /TASS/. The underwhelming Ukrainian counteroffensive has made it clear that Ukraine’s armed forces will fail to deliver a forceful counterblow to Russia by this winter, thus forcing Kiev to engage in peace talks with Moscow under strong Western pressure, Germany’s Die Welt newspaper writes.

However, the newspaper notes that such talks would not likely produce a long-term peace, but more likely would result in a so-called "frozen conflict" with Russia indefinitely holding the areas that it has occupied - constituting about 17% of Ukraine’s pre-conflict territory - and a line of contact would be demarcated that both parties would see as a temporary border. Thus, the conflict would be frozen, similar to what has prevailed on the Korean Peninsula.

Under this scenario, Ukraine would still have a long way to go before it could be eligible to join NATO and the European Union. Consequently, foreign investors would shy away from investing in the country due to its uncertain situation, thus hampering reconstruction work in what remains of Ukraine, which will proceed at a much-slower-than-expected pace. The newspaper stressed that within Ukraine itself, the lack of military success would probably fuel growing frustration among the military and civilians alike, thus shrinking the pool of reservists ready and willing to fight.

The paper went on to say that the West was highly disappointed with how the Ukrainian armed forces’ counteroffensive was going. Western governments "recognize that the Ukrainian armed forces are no longer capable of making sustainable breakthroughs and major gains, even though they have [been provided with] advanced weapons." "Washington, Berlin and London are eager to keep mum about the fact that insufficient Western weapons supplies are largely to blame for that," Die Welt concluded.

The Russian Defense Ministry said earlier that the Ukrainian armed forces had been making unsuccessful attempts at a counteroffensive since June 4. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on July 11 that Ukraine had lost more than 26,000 troops since the start of the counteroffensive. Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized that the Ukrainian military had failed to achieve any success at all in any area. Putin stated that Kiev’s counteroffensive had failed at a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in St. Petersburg on July 23.