Offensive to liberate Kherson will take place in summer - Serhiy Zgurets 

What new military aid package from US provides

The US aid package for Ukraine should be signed on August 8. As reported by the Reuters agency with reference to its own sources in the Pentagon, the new tranche was formed by ammunition for HIMARS, anti-aircraft missiles for the NASAMS system, as well as 50 medical armored personnel carriers M113.

NASAMS air defense systems are already being prepared for transfer to Ukraine and were provided for in the previous aid package from July 1. We expect 2 such complexes, which will require 144 missiles.  The cost of each is about USD 4 million. This means that almost USD 560 million of the USD 1 billion package will go to the minimum number of missiles needed to use these complexes. We will probably still get 3,000 missiles for HIMARS, which we desperately need on the battlefield. This requires USD 400 million. The remaining USD 50 million will be spent on M113 medical armored personnel carriers, which ensure the rapid evacuation of the wounded and the survival of our soldiers on the battlefield. The cost of each USD 1 million is determined by the medical equipment in each of the machines.

We are getting help from the USD 40 billion package that was announced in May. USD 13 billion was allocated to military needs, and I think that we have already received USD 10 billion. We will receive these USD 3 billion within two months - August and September. Next, lend-lease begins, which initiates another format of aid receipt, but its rate will be quite high.

Liberation of Kherson region will make it possible to defeat Russian forces in Crimea by fire

The south can be the direction where we can prove the superiority of our tactics over the enemy. British intelligence reported that the war between Ukraine and Russia will enter a new phase and the most intense fighting will take place on the front about 350 km from Zaporizhzhia to Kherson. Intelligence claimed that Russian troops were massing in the South expecting either a Ukrainian counteroffensive or preparing for their own offensive.

Foreign publications claimed that Russia had transferred a significant number of troops to the South. Now there are 25,000, 10 of which are on the west bank of the Dnieper around Kherson, and the decisive weeks or months of the war seem to be beginning, on which the future situation in relations between Ukraine and the Russian Federation and the future vision of the development of hostilities will depend. The words decisive and critical, I think, should not be used in such assessments.

The situation in the South is extremely important for us, given a number of factors that indicate that victory there and conducting a counteroffensive operation are extremely necessary. First of all, the liberation of Kherson region means improved security of Mykolaiv and Odesa, Crimea will then be under the fire of high-precision means. This is also an important psychological moment for both Ukraine and the West - we will take a significant step towards defeating the enemy. This is our concept of hostilities for the summer and autumn, which, I think, will be implemented. In its own way, the enemy is trying to act differently and implement the concept of the winter campaign. The Russian Federation needs it in order to shake the anti-Putin coalition due to the fact that it will be difficult for Europe to survive this winter. I think that these are unnecessary fears and the situation on the battlefield will be in our favor.

The potential of the troops that the Russian Federation sent to the south can be used for the offensive on Mykolaiv and for the advance on Zaporizhzhia along both banks of the Dnieper, but these are theoretical measures, because the potentials of those groups that are currently accumulated are incapable of carrying out long-term offensive operations.

The grouping on the right bank of the Dnieper is extremely important and vulnerable, due to the fact that we can destroy the enemy at the expense of artillery systems and systems of cutting the logistical connections that connect the banks of the Dnieper. We see that the Armed Forces calmly and sparingly use the option of closing the "tap" of providing for the Russian troops. We can say that the counteroffensive in the South is taking place using an asymmetric approach with the main emphasis on the destruction of command posts, storage bases and controlled opportunities to influence the Russian army on the right bank of the Dnieper.  Offensive actions for the liberation of Kherson with the use of infantry will indeed take place quickly enough precisely in the summer period of the campaign.

Russians cannot make up for the loss of manpower due to ideological campaign failure 

At once, 4 subjects in the Russian Federation are trying to recruit manpower: the first - the armed forces of the Russian Federation, the second - the first and second army corps are also trying to recruit soldiers in the regions bordering Ukraine, the third - the regional authorities, which were ordered to form so-called volunteer battalions  and the fourth - the so-called private military companies Wagner or Iva. In order to recruit manpower, the Russians set a space fee of 200,000 rubles per month. But, first of all, there is also an ideological motivation: they treat their recruits like this - "There is an irresistible threat in Ukraine, the mythical Nazis", and then from above there is such a motivation that they offer to enroll in the ranks of the armed forces - "Defeat an irresistible threat and get 200  thousand rubles per month." This motivation does not work.

There was information that each subject of the Russian Federation should form a volunteer battalion. If each of the subjects puts up 400 volunteers, that is at least 32,000 bayonets that can break the situation at the front. In addition, the armed forces of the Russian Federation planned to form the so-called third army corps numbering 15,000 bayonets, which as of August 15 should be ready to advance again on Kyiv from the side of Belarus.

The Russians proved unable to replenish the army's losses through the Third Corps and the so-called volunteer battalions and were forced to resort to recruiting prisoners in the colonies. The problem is not even that there was not enough money, rubles can always be printed.  The fact is that they could not adjust their ideological motivation. This mechanism could attract tens of thousands of so-called bayonets.