Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces has not yet gained the momentum that some overly optimistic observers anticipated. So far it feels like the prelude to a more expansive act.
Offensive operations so far have yielded modest gains in the southern regions like Zaporizhzhia, with multi-layered Russian defenses proving tough to crack. The area is seen as a major target for Ukraine, as it would mean breaking Russia’s land-bridge between annexed Crimea and eastern Donetsk.
But there are also signs that Ukrainian forces are spreading their bets, looking to pare back Russian gains around Bakhmut and exploiting what they perceive as vulnerabilities elsewhere in the east. Rather than a display of overwhelming force that concentrates newly-formed brigades in one direction, the Ukrainians appear to be trying to pull Russian units in different directions, working out which might be weak or exploiting lines separating different battalions. On Thursday, an adviser to the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, Mikhail, said the first goal was to wipe out as many Russian draftee units as possible and “increase the psychological pressure on the Russian army.”
“At the same time,” he said, Ukrainian units are “testing to see which areas are the weakest.”
This has included fresh assault operations around Bakhmut, designed to force the Russians to send more units to defend a city they took more than six months to destroy and occupy. On Friday, the commander of Ukrainian Land Forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said the Russians “continue to move some of the most combat-ready units to the Bakhmut direction.”
Perhaps more surprisingly, there are indications that the Ukrainians are on the front foot near the city of Donetsk, long a frozen line of contact, and further south around what has been the equally static but highly kinetic nuclear front.
The Ukrainians have the luxury of picking areas to attack; the Russians must try to defend a meandering front-line nearly 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) long, with some units that have already been mauled and patched up.
Still it is a formidable task: in the south especially, Ukrainian forces must conduct a frontal assault against deeply prepared defensive positions, and critically they lack air superiority. The Russians have had months to fortify defenses here; there was never a chance that the Ukrainians would make the sort of lightning advances they enjoyed in Kharkiv last fall. Schmidt, says the Ukrainians will have to learn fast. “Are troops learning the tricks they need to successfully breach Russian lines so they can teach and lead the next wave of the offensive? This learning effect is crucial to the success of the main thrust of the counteroffensive.”
The Ukrainian commander told CNN, “We are advancing, knocking the enemy out of positions, not as quickly as we would like, but we are moving forward. In places, the enemy is already panicking, throwing reserves [in] here.”
If this is true and widely replicated, Russian forces may be pulled in too many directions to sustain a coherent defense.
Early Days
For sure, the Russians have learned some hard lessons in nearly 18 months of conflict. Russian military bloggers, who are frequently critical of the military’s performance, have commended the use of electronic warfare capabilities that have disrupted Ukrainian communications and targeting, because precision-guided munitions require GPS coordinates.
The Institute for the Study of War said this week that it’s “unclear if continued successful Russian EW tactics are a result of superior capacities or improved Russian employment of these systems,” but there’s some evidence that they have become a priority target for the Ukrainians.
But a lot of what matters in the coming weeks will depend on events far from the front lines. Ukrainian targeting of rear positions – command centers, ammunition and fuel dumps – will impact Russian capabilities, as will the decisions and survival of mid- and senior officers on both sides.
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