The slow movement to victory: how the counteroffensive continues and why you should not look for betrayal on the map

What is the problem?

When the counteroffensive began is a debatable question, but June 10 will definitely go down in history as the day when Volodymyr Zelensky first admitted that this operation was ongoing.

Constant fighting occurs on the front from Kamianka in the south of Zaporizhzhia to Velyka Novosilka in the Donetsk region — earlier, this area appeared much less frequently in reports.

During this time, the Ukrainian army liberated eight villages: Novodarivka, Levadne, Storozheve, Makarivka, Blahodatne, Lobkove, Neskuchne, and Piatykhatky. Ukrainian fighters seize trophy equipment, but the front line changes slowly, and there will definitely not be a quick breakthrough to Melitopol.

Ukrainian observers talk about limited offensive actions (for example, when they break through enemy defenses 300-600 meters deep). At the same time, the American Institute for the Study of War experts believe that the Ukrainians took a break after the first strike and are preparing new tactics.

Each liberated settlement is already a great achievement under the conditions when the Russian Federation still has more soldiers, guns, tanks, and planes (by the way, the Ukrainians liberated more territory than the Russian Federation captured during its winter offensive).

The relatively slow pace of progress at first did not live up to the expectations of the allies. There have even been estimates that the counteroffensive has allegedly already failed, and therefore the West should think about peace talks.

What is the solution?

Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Kyiv, Ukraine, June 28, 2023. Photo: Oksana Parafeniuk/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

Despite all the memes about the counteroffensive, Ukraine is actually in a very disadvantageous position. Usually, the attacking side counts on some advantage: the effect of surprise (like the actions of Israel against the Arab coalition in the Six-Day War), a larger army, more modern equipment, or air superiority (like Operation Desert Storm and the 100 thousand sorties of the coalition aircraft against Iraqis during the Gulf War).

The situation in Ukraine is the opposite: the Russians have more equipment, a stronger air force, and the whole world has known about the counteroffensive since December. Therefore, the Russian Federation built three lines of fortifications 20-40 kilometers deep into the occupied territory, stationed its troops in them, and deployed multi-kilometer minefields in the path of the Ukrainians (almost 200,000 square kilometers were mined, which is roughly the size of the territory of Belarus).

As a result, Ukrainian General Staff had a choice of two options: to gradually penetrate the enemy's defenses, combining assaults on specific areas with artillery fire, drone strikes, and special forces raids in the rear of the Russians (as in the Kherson region in 2022) — or to attack fortified areas by human waves, like the troops of the Russian Federation in Bakhmut. Is it any wonder that the first method was chosen?

"We do not have enough strength or firepower for a classic offensive operation. Therefore, we are not acting according to the textbook at this stage, trying to use symmetrical and asymmetrical actions to destroy the combination of mine barriers, electromagnetic warfare, barrel, and rocket artillery, and attack helicopters of the enemy before putting the main maneuverable units into action," stated Mykola Bielieskov, military observer and expert of the National Institute for Strategic Studies.

According to Zelensky, mines are the main threat that slows the offensive. Indeed, the Russians even have installations for remote mining, and enemy troops usually cover the fields, so clearing the territory has to be done under fire. Western tanks and infantry fighting vehicles will not solve the problem: they also drive on land, so they suffer from mines.

Hence, in the south, Ukrainians attack only on parts of the front and in compact forces, combining infantry and equipment. The published videos usually show groups of fighters, several tanks, or infantry fighting vehicles taking up a forest strip or a village. If the defense is too powerful — while they stop, there is an opportunity to break through — larger forces are brought up. Artillery, drones, and engineering troops, which break minefield passages, remain behind the scenes.

It's not like hundreds of Leopard tanks are involved, breaking through to the Sea of Azov without stopping. According to Reuters, as of June 15, most of the counter-offensive units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not enter the battle at all.

Fighting in the village of Makarivka, Donetsk region, on June 13, 2023

"Well, we've seen a start that is, shall we say, moderate. I believe that we have not yet seen a real counteroffensive. Everything is yet to come. Based on my military experience, I would call it formative operations," commented Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic, a former general and deputy commander of NATO forces. Simply put, the Ukrainians want to equalize their forces before the main strike by winning local battles.

The latter is not a reason to believe it is easy for Ukrainian forces to fight. Deputy Head of the Ministry of Defense Hanna Malyar explained that Ukrainian soldiers have to deal with enemy aviation and armored vehicles, heavy artillery shelling, minefields, and trenches that must be overcome, massive attacks by Russian kamikaze drones (Lancets, which the enemy uses to hunt Ukrainian cannons, are especially dangerous) and anti-tank missile strikes.

"The occupying forces in the south of Ukraine are putting up a fierce resistance," Valerii Shershen, spokesman for Ukraine's defense forces, said earlier.

The Russian Msta-S self-propelled artillery installation is one of the main means of artillery in the forces of the invasion of Ukraine

"Destroying the enemy's artillery, anti-missile defense, headquarters, and warehouses" is how Oleksandr Karpyuk, a military observer better known under the pseudonym Serg Marco, defines the current task for the defense forces.

This is the element of the chess game that the experts wrote about. In this war, artillery is the main striking force on the battlefield. It is logical that to stop the Ukrainian offensive, the enemy is bringing batteries of howitzers, MLRS, and mortars to the front line. They place their artillery under the views of Ukrainian drone operators and anti-battery radars. They transmit the coordinates to Ukrainian gunners and pilots of attack drones — and the enemy is targeted from afar.

Suppressing the Russian guns and MLRS, at least on the part of the front, will be a serious intermediate victory, allowing Ukraine's main offensive forces to storm enemy fortifications without being exposed to continuous artillery fire. Yes, the Ukrainians have already hit:

• A whole group of the heaviest Russian artillery. Tulips, Hyacinths explode regularly, and several TOS-1 (a system whose salvo covers an area of 200×400 meters) and Peonies were destroyed.
• A lot of self-propelled guns Msta-S (the most modern machine in the arsenal of the occupiers). In one episode, it was possible to destroy five installations at once, and others are regularly reported.
• Stationary howitzers such as D-30 and Msta-B. It seems that the Russians are trying to compensate for the loss of self-propelled guns with conventional ones — as military commentator Kyrylo Danylchenko explains, they cannot maneuver, making it easier for Ukrainian forces to hit them.
• Many field ammunition depots — accordingly, the occupiers are running out of shells.

According to the General Staff, in June, Ukrainian fighters destroyed more than 700 Russian guns and multiple rocket launchers. For comparison, the German army has only 134 guns and 33 MLRS. The Ukrainians also knock out the artillery support: anti-aircraft and electronic defense systems that cover batteries from drones, and Zoopark radars, which are supposed to find targets for enemy guns.

Accordingly, the artillery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine can work a little more freely (although Lancets remain a serious problem) and destroy enemy equipment and fortifications from afar.

Meanwhile, it is more difficult for the Russians to use a wall of fire against the Ukrainian army, as at Sievierodonetsk and Bakhmut, so they are forced to collect reserves and send their infantry and armored vehicles to storm the recently lost villages, for example, as near the villages of Makarivka and Urozhayne, where the defense forces repelled enemy counterattacks.

Ukraine lacks Apaches and A-10s to destroy Russian equipment on the approach to the battlefield. Drone operators who hunt enemy T-72s and T-80s are trying their best to replace them. This has also affected the balance of forces before the main breakthrough because the Ukrainians are knocking out the reserves with which the Russian Federation planned to strengthen its main line of fortifications.

Photo: Ground forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces

So far, the defense forces are implementing the Kherson strategy: breaking the enemy's rear and logistics with strikes from afar.

In June, Ukrainian aviation hit with Storm Shadow missiles the Russian headquarters on the Arabatskaya arrow, ammunition warehouses near Henichesk, and other important objects such as the Berdyansk port, airport, or the Luhansk repair base. The explosions on the railways and the blast at the Chongar bridge are clear attempts to leave the enemy without support.

"Volnovakha, Melitopol, Tokmak, Henichesk, Lazurne — packages with jet artillery and heavy air-based missiles are going there, which come not only from warehouses but also from parks, locations, storage of oil products," commented Kyrylo Danylchenko.

Next, much will depend on whether the Russians will throw a maximum reserve force into battle. As Jack Watling, a senior researcher at the British Royal Joint Forces Institute, explains, the Ukrainians want to lure Russian troops from the third line of defense to the front line. Indeed, it is easier to defeat them there, especially when the enemy enters the range of action of the HIMARS (and other artillery).

"Passing the first line is not the only problem, but if we just pass through it, we will run into a very well-concreted and dug-in second line, where countless orcs will be sitting. This is hardly a good prospect," Yevhen Dykyi, a veteran of the anti-terrorist operation and publicist, noted. "So, in fact, we are now, during the destruction of the first line, extracting their reserves as much as possible and destroying them between the first and second lines."

We do not forget that, at the same time, our command is "expanding the front." Ukrainian units attacked in the Bakhmut area, occupying the heights around the city and the bridgehead in the area of Kurdyumivka, from which the Russians planned to advance deep into the Donetsk region.

The enemy does not want to lose them, so they are forced to transfer reinforcements there. Now the Russians are also being hit in the left-bank Kherson region. In short, the Russian Federation is forced to stretch its forces along the entire line of contact.

Presumably, the enemy also sees this risk and attacks the eastern flank. Particularly fierce battles are occurring in the Kreminna area, near the villages of Avdiivka and Maryinka. The Russians seem to want to pull Ukrainian reserves to the east similarly. This plan is thwarted by Ukraine's brigades in that direction with their stubborn defense — so we should not forget them either.

If the Russian Federation still uses reserves, Ukraine's General Staff will have a chance to find a weak spot in the Russian defense. Although the enemy is strong, it is not all-powerful, and the front line in the south is 450 kilometers (for example, in the Verbove region, the Russian Federation already used special forces in the role of infantry, not an elite reserve). The Ukrainian brigades, still waiting for a signal, will hit this point.

In a similar fashion, the Israel Defense Forces defeated the Egyptians in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. Egypt did not have enough forces for the entire front, and a gap appeared between their 2nd and 3rd armies in Sinai. The Israelis discovered it in time and threw several divisions into the gap, breaking through the front and forcing the Egyptians to ask for peace talks.

No exact forecasts are in the public domain, but experts usually predict a long campaign.

"It will take weeks or months," American military analysts interviewed by the New York Times comment on the counteroffensive. "For many months," Western officials predicted in a conversation with the British Sky News.

"All the same, I will venture to predict that in a couple of weeks, we will reach the second line [of Russian defense]," said Dykyi. According to him, further predictions will be possible only when it becomes clear how the Russians will defend the second line.

"It will take six, eight, ten weeks. It will be tough. It will be very long, and it will be very, very bloody. No one should have any illusions about this," said Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Army, General, adding that he is optimistic about the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

***

The Ukrainian army implements a complex plan for an offensive operation — it is long and multi-step, but it gives us a chance to see the blue and yellow flags over Enerhodar, Melitopol, Berdyansk, and many other cities and villages. Therefore, you should not see it as betrayal and share it on social networks.

However, it is also not the time for relaxing, waiting for someone to win for all of us in the counterattack. Battles are difficult, so our fighters need a lot of everything: from drones (often shot down by the enemy) and first aid kits to artillery spare parts and thermal imaging cameras.

This is a good reason to join the ranks of volunteers yourself or to help others with your donation. This is the only way civilians can make the counteroffensive faster.

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When there will be a counteroffensive: how Ukraine is preparing to liberate the east and the south and what is needed for victory