On what does Ukraine's success at the front depend? What are its strategic plans? When will the temporarily occupied territories be a part of Ukraine again?
President Volodymyr Zelensky said in February: "If we remain a strong fist within our country and if our partners remain united for the sake of our victory, keep their promises, victory will inevitably await us already this year."
The month before, Ukraine finally began to receive modern tanks and infantry fighting vehicles — so it is not surprising that Ukrainians Google "When will there be a counteroffensive?" and discuss the return of Crimea.
Hopes that blue and yellow Ukrainian flags will soon fly over the occupied cities of Melitopol or Berdyansk contrast with reality, where Ukraine's armed forces struggle to stave off russian attacks from Zaporizhzhia to the Kharkiv region.
The epicenter of the fighting has been in Bakhmut, where the occupiers are moving forward, albeit extremely slowly. russian losses in this battle are five times greater than Ukraine's, but in the process Ukraine is losing the most valuable thing it has: the lives of its defenders.
Pessimism and criticism are also increasing in the Western media: they criticize Ukraine for the decision to defend Bakhmut instead of concentrating troops for a counteroffensive. The media talk about the weakness of the Ukrainian armed forces and growing pessimism among the troops. Some express doubts whether there will be a counteroffensive at all.
"Each day of defense of the city of Bakhmut allows us to gain time to prepare reserves and prepare for future offensive operations. At the same time, in the battles for this fortress, the enemy loses the most prepared and combat-capable part of its army — Wagner's assault units," explained the commander of the Ground Forces, Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi, giving a common answer to the question, "when is the counteroffensive?"
Liberating occupied regions in the east and south are the second priority in Ukraine's strategy for 2023 – the first is to defend Bakhmut, Vuhledar, Maryinka, and other districts. Ukraine's general staff have said their aim is to maintain their fortified positions, while drawing the enemy out from their fortifications to expose them to attack.
The plan is to attack when the troops of the russian federation are exhausted after months of brutal assaults, so that the Ukrainian military will go on a counterattack against a weakened enemy.
"For a counteroffensive, the russians need to have 'fluid' battle formations. Bakhmut is one of the ways to thin out the ranks of the russians so that Ukrainian mechanized units on Western armored vehicles can penetrate there," says Ivan Kyrychevskyi, a military columnist for Defense Express.
Why isn't it possible to launch a counteroffensive tomorrow, thereby avoiding the exhausting "trench war" and losses? From the interview of Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, with The Economist, it was clear even three months ago that the general was determined to liberate the occupied territories, not to stand on the defensive.
However, military theory dictates that an offensive requires a threefold advantage over the enemy. In the case of Ukraine, everything is the opposite: the russian federation has more tanks, guns, and infantry fighting vehicles than Ukraine.
Foreign Policy estimates that russians have 1,800 tanks, 3,950 armored vehicles, 2,700 guns, and 810 Grad multiple rocket systems – and that while the occupiers are poorly prepared and equipped, it is still a serious force.
Ukrainian forces are on the defensive for the time being, compensating for the numerical advantage of the russians. As John Maurer, a military expert at the American Enterprise Institute, explains, soldiers on the defensive have an advantage over the enemy because they can detect attackers in advance and prepare a counterattack.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine are still not ready for a large-scale breakthrough because they are waiting for Western weapons and equipment. Tanks and armored vehicles like the Leopard-2, Bradley, and Challenger-2 are more powerful than their russian counterparts and will give Ukrainian fighters an advantage on the battlefield.
The editor-in-chief of the Novynarnia media outlet, Dmytro Lykhoviy, emphasizes that the only other option for a counteroffensive in Ukraine's current realities is to act similar to russian tactics by sending thousands of Ukrainian soldiers in mass frontal attacks in the style of World War I. As they did a century ago, such offensives would result in huge losses, especially for the Ukrainian side, since the russian federation has more artillery.
Syrskyi says a Ukrainian counteroffensive is "just around the corner," without naming a specific date. Mykhailo Podolyak, the adviser to Zelensky, predicts it for May.
Experts say that Ukraine's military leadership will likely wait for the coincidence of two factors: when the enemy runs out of steam, and when the Armed Forces of Ukraine become stronger. The direction of future Ukrainian strikes is also unknown, so all the discussions about it being in the direction of Melitopol or Volnovakha are only guesses.
Battles for Vuhledar
February's battles for the city of Vuhledar in the Donetsk region illustrate the plan of the Ukrainian command. The Ukrainian military built up a fortified area with minefields, anti-tank positions, and artillery batteries there. Aerial scouts monitored the enemies thanks to drones.Two russian marine brigades and units of the Third Army Corps of the russian federation stormed Ukrainian positions many times with dozens of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. Still, the Armed Forces of Ukraine showed competent preparation for the battles, and repelled the attacks every time – giving rise to destroyed tank columns that circulated on social media.
Under the heavy fire and counterattacks of the Ukrainians, the russian occupiers lost up to 130 pieces of equipment, including 36 tanks. As British Defense Minister Ben Wallace said, the 155th brigade of the russian marines was completely destroyed.
For the defenders of Bakhmut, the situation is much more complicated — the city is being stormed from three sides. But there, too, the Ukrainian army is striking the enemy. "Tors air defense systems, Zoos artillery search radars, artillery, tanks…hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of equipment is knocked out every day," notes Oleksandr Karpluk, a volunteer and businessman known by the pseudonym Serg Marco.
According to Ivan Kyrychevskyi, as of March 12, russia lost up to 50,000 soldiers near Bakhmut, but still continues to attack the city.
From February 1 to March 20, the Ukrainian Defense Forces destroyed 370 guns, 49 volley fire installations, and 49 air defense systems. And near Lyman, only on March 7, Ukrainian soldiers destroyed five modern russian T-90 tanks.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the russians have also begun to use ammunition more sparingly, although they are still far from shell starvation.
Military experts draw a parallel between the battles around Bakhmut and 2022's defense of Sievierodonetsk. Then, the Ukrainians defended the city through tough conditions for over a month before ultimately having to retreat, while managing to halt further russian advances there.
"Now the battles in the directions of Kupyansk, Lyman, Bakhmut and its surroundings, Avdiivka and Vuhledar are about creating the conditions for Ukraine's future counteroffensive, for which weapons were promised in January 2023 and training programs were launched by Western partners," explains Mykola Bielieskov, chief consultant of Ukraine's National Institute for Strategic Studies, comparing the situation with last year.
The Ukrainian leadership has chosen to defend Bakhmut, not because of stubbornness, but because there is currently no other way to stop the enemy. The General Staff will decide whether to hold the city further or withdraw to the second line of fortifications, but see the choice to abandon Bakhmut in order to prepare for a counteroffensive, as Western commentators sometimes advise, as an impossibility.
As experts from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) explain, if the Ukrainians left the city without a fight, the russian army would press deeper into the Donetsk region — there is no reason to believe that the russians would have stopped, so the front lines would simply shift to Kramatorsk or Sloviansk.
Before the New Year, commentators predicted a "great russian offensive" in which the russian federation would try to capture the entire Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, but this ended in a general failure, as ISW notes, further predicting that Ukraine will soon have an opportunity for a riposte.
Western-style combat vehicles, such as the German Leopard-2 tank or the Bradley infantry fighting vehicle are key weapons for Ukraine's victory, with the speed for sharp breakthroughs, powerful guns to destroy russian fortifications, and strong armor to withstand hits while covering Ukrainian infantry.
Almost all of this equipment has not yet officially arrived in Ukraine, so Bradley and Challenger-2 have not yet been able to help break the siege of Bakhmut.
Ukraine was promised almost 300 different fighting vehicles and 150 Leopard-2 tanks. Still, according to official data, the Ukrainian army has received only 14 tanks from Poland and an unspecified number of AMX-10 combat vehicles from France.
Meanwhile, in Britain, the Ukrainians are mastering the Challenger-2. The Germans started training crews on the Leopard-2 and the Marder systems a month ago. In the same country, since the end of February, the Americans have been training an entire mechanized battalion which will fight using Stryker and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, and self-propelled guns. Sweden has plans to transfer another 50 infantry fighting vehicles and a battery of howitzers, but where and how the crews are preparing has not been reported.
The main question on the minds of analysts watching Ukraine is when these armored vehicles will reach the front line, because they will be key to the date when the counteroffensive begins. Estimated dates were given only by the British: they planned to bring the Challengers-2 by the end of March.
Another deficit with which the allies should help is ammunition. According to Bielieskov, Ukrainian artillery is currently fighting at approximately 20% of its combat power because tank units fighters simply have nothing to shoot with – making the lack of ammunition one of the reasons behind the stalemate in Bakhmut.
Stockpiles of ammunition are necessary for an effective counteroffensive, since artillery is the main strike force of the Ukrainian army, and it is the gunners who will have to hit russian warehouses, batteries, and fortifications from afar, clearing the way for infantry and equipment.
The United States has already promised hundreds of thousands of NATO-caliber projectiles and is now ordering Soviet-style ammunition from Romania and Bulgaria. Most Ukrainian brigades still fight with Soviet-era equipment, and Ukraine did not produce shells for them. If all military aid arrives on time, the Ukrainian army will be in a much better position.
Another imperative for Ukraine will be to replenish an energetic corps of soldiers. Ukraine cannot simply withdraw troops from the Belarusian border or the Kherson region, where the enemy is also stationed.
"Now, Ukraine's newly mobilized, plus old units allocated for rotation and restoration are being prepared at landfills," Lykhoviy emphasized. "That's NNN hundreds of thousands of people. Another N thousand of Ukrainians are training abroad." According to data from open sources, EU countries alone promised to train up to 50,000 Ukrainian fighters, and Britain also has its own program. New brigades are also being deployed in Ukraine once they complete training.
Ukraine's forces have suffered significant losses since war began in 2014, but now many soldiers are "morally and physically exhausted after a year of such a war," noted Bielieskov.
Battle-weary soldiers need to be swapped out with fresh fighters who require time for military training, hence the need for assistance from large-scale training programs carried out by Britain and the EU. For example, in the Israel Defense Forces, only the basic course for fighters lasts four months. Proper training of the soldiers will solve the problems Western observers warn against.
***
The Ukrainian army continues to repel aggression from russia, which spends $150-200 bln on its army yearly — that is why one should not expect quick and easy victories. However, the help of allies and careful preparation give Ukraine a chance for a successful counteroffensive.
And for Ukrainians, this is a reminder: one should not forget that there is a war in the country (even when it is far from Kyiv) and switch to political disputes and planning life after victory. Ukrainians should continue to help the army and civilians, donate to volunteers, and develop and rebuild the country. After all, such popular resistance has been saving the country for more than a year.
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