There will be no comparison to Ukraine’s next counter-offensive
This is a risk worth taking
The war against Russia can be divided into three distinct periods from the Ukrainian perspective: Before HIMARS, After HIMARS and After Russia’s partial mobilization.
The United States and the allies supplied multiple-rocket launchers to Ukraine in June 2022. The Ukrainian army stalled the Russian advance between February and June, pushing it away from Kyiv and Kharkiv. The Russian forces were many times larger than theirs, and they lacked sufficient weapons and troops to meet the entire Russian force.
During this period, Ukraine focused all its attention on one thing: not allowing Kyiv and Kharkhiv to fall into Russian hands. And they won this battle. This allowed the Ukrainian government to remain alive and fight on.
Ukraine recovered well after losing so much territory in the early days of the war because they understood their limitations and worked within it. The Russian army lost most of its elite units during this period. The 200th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade was beaten back from Kharkiv. The elite Russian air assault brigades that were tasked with capturing the Hostomel airport suffered their worst defeat in history.
Battered and bruised, the Russian army was forced to make a pivot.
Russia lowered its objective from toppling Kyiv to capturing Donbas. The transition from urban to rural combat, brutally exposed Ukrainian weakness.
Ukraine did not have the weapons to counter Russia’s artillery strength. By early June, Russia’s scorched earth tactics saw them methodically push Ukraine on the backfoot in Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, two important towns that were still under Ukrainian control.
It became clear that Ukraine did not have the strength to hold against the Russia’s destruction doctrine. This forced the allies to heed to Ukraine’s request for multiple rocket launchers. Ukraine requested for them in April 2022.
The west supplied those units in June, while expanding the type of the weapons Ukraine was provided.
And the rest is history.
Ukraine was prepared for the new weapons. Instead of targeting towns for generating headlines, Ukraine attacked the enemy’s logistics and supply.
Ukraine will take out the biggest supply node first and then bring down the smaller nodes that are dependent on the bigger one. This is how they liberated large swaths of territory in the Kharkiv region. They deployed a very similar strategy in the south.
It was tactical brilliance.
But the series of victories Ukraine achieved helped Russia. As the Russian forces occupied less land than before, their density immediately increased in the rest of the occupied territory. The changes in the terrain, along with this, prevented Ukraine from continuing their offensive.
As Russian forces were now protected by the Dnipro river, they filled their leaking army with hundreds of thousands of newly conscripted soldiers and launched their eastern offensive. It was a disastrous failure. The Russian army is once again battered and bruised. The time has come for Ukraine to take the initiative and launch an offensive against the Russians.
But unlike the earlier counter-offensives this one will be very different. Russia and Ukraine are preparing in their own ways for the next battle. Both nations are on overdrive to recruit soldiers for their army.
Vladimir Putin, instead of ordering another round of mobilization and triggering another round of mass exodus, has increased the size of the regular Russian draft. This is expected to allow the army to recruit 147,000 men.
According to a recent report by Reuters, Ukraine is training 40,000 soldiers for its counter-offensive. As a general rule, a defending force has a 3:1 advantage over an attacker. That is, a defending force can hold off three times its own number of attackers.
It is never easy to mount an offensive. The Russians’ overwhelming superiority in numbers and artillery did not matter when it came to well defended Ukrainian positions in the eastern frontline.
- The Russian army is bigger.
- Mass artillery is probably its strongest advantage over Ukraine.
“Ukraine is firing some 7,700 shells per day, or roughly one every six seconds, according to a Ukrainian military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly. Russia, which may also be running low, is firing more — by some estimates triple that amount”.
Russians are building defensive structures throughout the occupied zone. “Among the defenses are miles-long rows of concrete pyramids known as dragon’s teeth and deep ditches called tank traps. Both are designed to slow Ukrainian vehicles and force them into preset positions where Russian forces can target them”.
There is no doubt that the west is aware of this development, and we can see it in the list of weapons granted to Ukraine as a result.
“Reviewing the multiple US military assistance packages since 14 October 2022, there has been a large effort to equip Ukrainian combat engineers for their coming efforts to identify, reduce and move through the dense obstacle zones constructed by the Russian Army in eastern and southern Ukraine. Demolitions munitions, obstacle reduction and mine clearance equipment, mobile bridging capabilities (Armored Vehicle Launched Bridges) as well as Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles and artillery delivered anti-tank mines, have featured on the publicly released lists of American supplied military assistance.
At the same time, the UK has provided a ‘manoeuvre support package’ including minefield breaching and bridge laying capabilities. Other armies from Germany, Canada, Finland, Slovakia, and Norway have provided equipment like combat engineering vehicles based on the Leopard tank chassis”, says Mick Ryan, AM, retired Australian military commander.
For example, Ukraine is expected to receive four Pionierpanzer Dachs from Germany. You can see them in action in the following video:
As part of the counteroffensive, Ukraine will not only need to consider the equipment in its possession but also the terrain. Ukrainian troops will have to keep an eye on their rear while moving forward. Vehicles need fuel, weapons need ammunition, soldiers need food and water, and the injured will need evacuation, so the front must stay connected. At the very least, it must stay at a reachable distance.
This necessity all but rules out Ukraine launching an attack by crossing the Dnipro, as the supply line would have to cross the river, making the entire attack line vulnerable to the river crossing. Consequently, Ukraine will have to take advantage of the open terrain in the south east or east.
The Russian government understands this need and has prepared extensive defensive structures in Zaporizhzhia- Melitopol line to protect Crimea.
Since removing these obstacles will require back-and-forth exchanges between the troops stationed along the line, Ukrainian attacks will begin slowly and methodically.
Attempts to clear the obstacle will be met with massive firepower from troops stationed to protect the barriers. And they will not have a lot of time to punch through as Russia will most likely rush its troops to the site of the attempted breach.
Ukraine will use its air defense systems, including the Patriot battery to protect the sky above the advancing troops. As long as the Patriot system stands, Russia will have a difficult time bringing back its hidden air force. Russians will make the Patriot system their top priority. They will do everything in their power to bring it down. Ukraine will do everything in its power to stop them.
As soon as Ukraine breaches the obstacles, likely at multiple locations, the real attack will begin. Ukraine must move as fast as possible and find a way to reach the Russian occupation chain’s rear end. If they manage to break in and reach the rear at multiple points, they should be able to force the occupiers to flee.
Ukraine has to make the Russians press the panic button. They are a smaller force, with better equipment and higher morale. So driving the enemy out is a much better option than trying to make an oversized enemy surrender in its entirety.
The objective must be disorientation and dislocation.
Not destruction and devastation.
It is a risk.
With so much resources invested in the offensive, Ukraine is indeed taking a huge risk. A failure would have severe repercussions for Ukraine as well as the west. Invariably, Western support will drop after a failure, and they may try to force Ukraine to sign a peace agreement with Russia that requires Ukrainians to give up a large amount of land.
Nevertheless, the benefits of such an attack far outweigh the risks. It has been a year since the war began. Russia and Ukraine have both lost significant numbers of soldiers.
The west has backed Ukraine for more than a year, but it’s too risky to expect them to keep sending weapons and funding at the same rate for another year. If fatigue sets in, the west could ramp up pressure on Ukraine to quit the fight.
In the second half of the year, Trump will be on the campaign trail as the presidential campaigns begin in the United States. The more he talks about Putin, the more panic will set in the western world.
Instead of dragging out the war for another 12 months, Ukraine should take the risk now and push for an outright victory as soon as possible. Ukraine would have been more powerful and flexible had the west provided more fighter jets and longer range missiles, but this didn’t happen. Thus, the country must make do with its limited resources.
It is the Russian construction of an extensive network of trenches in Crimea that I see as the single biggest weakness in Russia’s preparation to withstand the Ukrainian offensive. It is not a good idea to tell your soldiers that you expect Ukraine to breach the obstacles at the front and march to Crimea, which is over 100 miles away from the frontline.
Units near the frontlines will find this incredibly motivating. As soon as intense fire occurs, they will run.
