For Six Months Now, the Battlefield Initiative Remains Ukraine's

For what appears to be the first time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainians have seized and maintained the battlefield initiative in the war. 

This started with the surprise counterattacks in late winter, early spring and have continued through the summer to this fall. Across the front, Ukrainian forces have gained ground, decimated Russian units and have forced the Russian command to respond to Ukrainian moves, which has also denied the Russians the ability to initiate attacks of their own. If this momentum continues, the tide of war will have formally shifted. JL

Shankar Narayan reports in The Concis:

Ukraine has taken the initiative — and six months later, Russia is still struggling to take it back. At the end of March, Ukraine had taken the battlefield initiative. More than six months have passed since then. By keeping the frontline under drone coverage. Then striking farther back: the supply routes, ammunition depots, command posts and assembly areas feeding those attacks. Making it harder for the next group to reach the fight, and harder to sustain the men who get through. The Russians might still find a gap. Exploiting it would become another problem. Ukraine keeps presenting Russia with problems that consume the forces it needs elsewhere. That is how pressure can build towards a larger rupture.

Ukraine has taken the initiative — and six months later, Russia is still struggling to take it back.

That is vital because, for much of this war, neither side has held the advantage without the other finding a way to wrench it away. One side changes the fight. The other absorbs the blow, adapts and hits back. To understand what has changed, we must follow that sequence.

Russia invaded with the upper hand, overstretched and was pushed back. By the middle of 2022, it was using overwhelming artillery and scorched-earth tactics to grind forward. Ukraine absorbed the punishment, then delivered two crushing reversals: Kharkiv and Kherson.

There was an opening. The Biden and Scholz administrations failed to press it. Putin got time to dig in, build fortifications and prepare for the next phase.

Russia leaned harder on the resource its commanders were prepared to spend without restraint: men. Feed enough soldiers into the grinder, accept losses far beyond Ukraine’s and bet that the smaller country would run out first.

Ukraine’s answer was to change the terms of the fight. It could not afford to keep matching Russian bodies with Ukrainian bodies. So it ramped up drones. More of the battle became Ukrainian machines hunting Russian manpower. Armoured movement grew increasingly dangerous. Tanks and troop carriers became targets before they could deliver the advantage they were built to provide.

Russia adapted again. Smaller groups. Men on foot. Troops trying to slip through gaps in Ukrainian positions instead of smashing through them in armoured columns.

The calculation was brutal: what will you do if I keep sending ten men willing — or ordered — to die into your lines every few kilometres? You can kill most of them. But can you stop every group, every day, across an enormous front?

Ukraine’s next answer reached beyond the men approaching its positions.

Keep the frontline under persistent FPV drone coverage. Then strike farther back: the supply routes, ammunition depots, command posts and assembly areas feeding those attacks. Make it harder for the next group to reach the fight, and harder to sustain the men who get through.

The Russians might still find a gap. Exploiting it would become another problem.

By April this year, that combination — FPV coverage at the front and expanding mid-range strikes behind it — was changing the balance. Our assessment is that this was when the initiative moved into Ukraine’s hands.

Other factors mattered. But this sits near the top because it attacked the machinery that allowed Russia to keep spending men for territory. And that helps explain the difference six months later. Russia has kept feeding troops into the fight. Ukraine has made it harder to turn those troops into advances.

Putin needs another answer. So far, he has struggled to find one. His inability to wrest back the initiative is already showing up on the battlefield — and the cost is climbing.

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At the end of March, The Concis assessed that Ukraine had taken the battlefield initiative. More than six months have passed since then. That is a long time to reshape a battlefield when your enemy cannot wrest control of it back.

By the middle of this month, we assessed that Russian reserves were being depleted rapidly while their logistics continued to take a beating. The pressure was building towards the next rupture in Russia’s lines — and we expected it to open the way to a larger liberation than the roughly 300 square kilometres Operation Vivaldi reclaimed in the north.

Today, we have further confirmation pointing in that direction.

The important detail in ISW’s latest assessment is what Ukraine is forcing Russia to do. In its October 25 report, ISW says:

Ukrainian forces are making slow but tactically significant gains in the Oleksandrivka direction that may later threaten Russian logistics and efforts in the Oleksandrivka and Hulyaipole directions over the long term.

ISW reports that Ukrainian counterattacks forced Russia to divert naval infantry formations into defensive duties instead of supporting an offensive around Hulyaipole. Elements of a tank division intended to support the push towards Druzhkivka were also redirected to Oleksandrivka.

Forces intended to help Putin take more Ukrainian ground are being pulled into the work of holding what he already occupies. Ukraine is making Russia spend combat power on problems Ukraine creates.

There is a logistics threat developing behind that pressure, too. ISW identifies Velyka Novosilka as a critical road junction supporting Russia’s southern offensive effort. Further Ukrainian advances could threaten the rear of Russian forces operating towards Orikhiv.

That is why these gains matter beyond the territory being liberated today. They draw Russian formations into defensive battles while creating opportunities to put their supply network under greater pressure.

This fits the direction we have been watching: Ukraine keeps presenting Russia with problems that consume the forces it needs elsewhere. That is how pressure can build towards a larger rupture.