Why Ukraine's Counteroffensive Is A Demonstration of Preparedness

The Ukrainians have been preparing this counteroffensive for six months - and the Russians have known they were coming. 

The major question now playing out on the battlefields of the country's east and south is which has done the more complete job. Russia has fallen back on its defensive expertise, honed from Napoleon's 1812 invasion and exemplified by Stalin's defeat of the Nazis at Kursk in 1943, the largest tank and artillery battle in human history. But Ukraine has demonstrated time and again in this war that it can out-think and out-fight the Russians, using new weapons and tactics, as well as the determination of its troops and commanders. Now it must execute the strategy its new equipment and training was prepared for this purpose. JL

Daniel Michaels and Isabel Coles report in the Wall Street Journal:

Kyiv’s troops are attempting a feat few modern militaries would dare: dislodge Russian troops that have spent months digging themselves in and readying for Ukraine’s long telegraphed onslaught. The fight unfolding now, a slugfest on the battlefield, is more fundamentally a battle of readiness. Both sides since the middle of last year have been mustering weapons, troops and defensive positions for what they knew would be a pivotal moment.

Military orthodoxy says that an army on the offensive that is hitting entrenched enemies should start with airborne barrages, followed by an overwhelming ground assault advancing beneath flying gunships blasting open a path. 

Ukraine hasn’t had that option.

Lacking a robust air force, Kyiv’s troops are attempting a feat few modern militaries would dare: dislodge Russian troops that have spent months digging themselves in and readying for Ukraine’s long telegraphed onslaught.

Ukrainians’ early setbacks are a sign that their offensive will be a long, deadly grind, and not a repeat of their rout of Russian troops in the northeast region of Kharkiv late last summer.

“It was always going to be difficult,” said Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Russian forces “have been preparing for a long time. They learned from their mistakes in Kharkiv.”

The fight unfolding now, a slugfest on the battlefield, is more fundamentally a battle of readiness. Both sides since the middle of last year have been mustering weapons, troops and defensive positions for what they knew would be a pivotal moment.

Ukraine has garnered billions of dollars worth of advanced arms and armor from its Western allies. Moscow, meanwhile, has called up more than 200,000 soldiers, dug trenches and prepared firing positions to stop the Ukrainians. Most significant, Russian troops have spread potentially millions of land mines, some emplaced by mine-spewing rockets fired from mobile launchers.  

A Ukrainian unit driving advanced U.S. and European equipment earlier this month drove into one of those minefields, which incapacitated several tanks and armored fighting vehicles. Other units have faced aerial attacks from Russian helicopter gunships and missiles, launched from both air and the ground.

 

Faced with setbacks in probing attacks, Ukrainian commanders over recent days have in many places paused advances to reassess tactics. At least some of the damaged vehicles were recovered, officials said.

Lacking air superiority, Ukraine has sought to degrade Russian forces’ capacity to fight by hitting their supplies and centers of command and control with long-range strikes, most recently using British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles. Kyiv employed the tactic with great success last year, using shorter-range U.S.-made Himars truck-based rocket launchers to hit Russian nodes and undermine troops’ fighting strength.

 

Ukraine late last year retook the southern city of Kherson after methodically destroying Russian supply lines and support to its fighters, who could be reinforced only across vulnerable bridges. Kherson was uniquely vulnerable because of its position at the confluence of two rivers, which hemmed in Russian forces there. Even so, the siege took months to succeed. Today’s Ukrainian targets aren’t as prone to assault as Kherson was, which increases complexities for Kyiv.

Kursk

RUSSIA

Belgorod

Luhansk

Fighting where Ukraine is seeking to advance

Kyiv

Bakhmut

Russian-controlled

Donetsk

Velyka Novosilka

UKRAINE

Zaporizhzhia

Orikhiv

Mariupol

Tokmak

Sea of Azov

Mykolaiv

Kherson

MOLDOVA

Odesa

CRIMEA

Sevastopol

100 miles

Black Sea

100 km

Note: Russian-controlled area as of June 15.

Sources: Institute for the Study of War and AEI's Critical Threats Project
Emma Brown/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Ukrainian attackers can succeed in breaking through Russian lines only if they first wear out its forces, said Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. “Because they don’t have the air supremacy, they can’t blast their way through, protecting their armored spearheads,” he said. “It’s a very brutal phase.”

To boost its chances of success, Ukraine has been working to stretch and test Russian responses. Over recent weeks Kyiv’s forces have staged attacks at points along the length of the front line, from the Russian city of Belgorod across the Ukraine border in the north, to near Tokmak, a vital rail nexus for occupying Russian troops in Ukraine’s south. Ukrainian commanders said Sunday they destroyed a large Russian ammunition depot in occupied territory near the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014. 

Ukraine also has hit Russian forces in Bakhmut, a city near the center of the 900-mile-long front line that Moscow spent almost 10 months fighting to capture. As Russian troops claimed the city center several weeks ago, Ukrainian troops who had withdrawn to surrounding high ground began pounding them. The continuing battle has drawn in more Russian soldiers, who might otherwise hold defensive lines. Analysts at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization estimate Russia has suffered roughly 100,000 casualties around Bakhmut.

“The Russian side in Bakhmut looks very, very tired, if not exhausted,” said a senior NATO official.

In other places, Ukrainian troops including commandos are seeking weak points in Russian defenses. Even advances that don’t breach Russian lines can help Ukrainian tacticians because they draw Russian responses. By observing how Russian troops react and seeing where responding troops emerge from, Ukrainian commanders can locate new targets to hit with long-range weaponry. Radio communications among Russians can also help Ukraine find targets and potentially gain battlefield intelligence, say Western military officials.

Still, any edge Ukraine gains against Russian defenders in terms of human factors, such as exhaustion or motivation, can be offset by Russian strengths in physical defenses, air power or other tools such as electronic-warfare gear, where Moscow is strong, say Western officials. And land mines may prove particularly effective for Russia.

Russia’s land mines are lethal precisely because they require no human intervention, so remain regardless of local circumstances or troop morale. They are difficult to detect and compel attacking troops to slow to a crawl, leaving soldiers and equipment exposed to attack. Many of Russia’s mines pack more explosive force than Ukraine and its allies had expected, meaning they do more damage than predicted.

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“You need pretty detailed intelligence to know where every minefield is,” said the senior NATO official. “It’s not that hard to go out and lay a minefield.”

Ultimately the coming battles will boil down to which side’s preparations prevail, say strategists. Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, compared the current situation to the World War II Battle of Kursk, a Russian city near eastern Ukraine. In the spring of 1943, attacking Nazis and defending Soviets knew they would square off somewhere in the region and both sides prepared. 

When Germany launched its offensive, it became clear that they had waited too long and the Soviets had been strengthening faster, Cancian said. Moscow won the ensuing fight, which was the largest tank battle in history.

Similarly, Kyiv and Moscow have both been improving their positions over recent months, so the looming fight will test “who is getting stronger at a faster rate,” Cancian said. While the advantage probably goes to Kyiv, he said, “I worry about Kursk.”