Russian counteroffensive against Ukraine: what will it take to convince the Ukrainians if Russia isn’t off-balance?
All of the public chatter about the offensive has kept Ukraine from revealing how long it will take to launch the operation. Ukrainian political and military leaders are frequently asked this question, and reply “soon.”
Some analysts say the initial stages of the offensive could already be underway, a reference to a spate of surprise, relatively small attacks inside Russia.
This includes the pair of drones that hit the Kremlin in Moscow earlier this month, causing only minor physical damage to the domed roof of a building, but delivering a psychological jolt to the Russians.
Neither Denying or Confirmation is what Ukraine does when it comes to attacks inside Russia. This is part of a plan to prevent Russia from being off-balance in time for the offensive.
Ukraine still has fewer troops and less equipment than Russia, but Ukraine’s military has so far proven more effective — with better morale, smarter tactics and more advanced Western weapons — than Russia’s. The counteroffensive is a bet on the ability of Ukraine to use those advantages to regain large territories and repel Russia.
“It may require multiple offensives on multiple fronts and will likely be conducted over the period of several months rather than days or weeks,” Kofman said.
“I think that Russian forces have to be seen to be decisively beaten in this operation. Ukraine needs to demonstrate in this phase of the war that it’s still capable of breaking through Russian lines,” he added.
It will be hard to justify the supply of all the weapons if they don’t show much success. “If they take back some territory, they could say that we’re making progress.” It’s very tough. Please send us more money as we still need it.
“The honest answer is, I think we’ll know it when we see it,” he said. It will be interpreted by capitals in Europe and by other Western partners in some way.
“Russia has 3 times the population of Ukranian, so the Russians can conscript hundreds of thousands of young men, who are cannon fodder,” he said.
You’ll see people suggesting that it’s time to encourage the Ukrainians. I think that’s not right, he added. I worry about people who are prepared to discuss what territory Russia should give to Ukraine even though it’s not their territory to give away.
Russia was given time to reinforce vulnerable areas in the south and east of Ukraine, which is the area where the Ukrainians are most likely to attack.
The West also recently pledged to meet Ukraine’s long-standing request for F-16 fighter jets, though the Ukrainian air force must still learn how to fly and maintain these American planes, a process expected to take months.
An important factor is that Ukraine now has enough weapons for only one major push. If the Ukrainians have not made progress by the fall, when colder and wetter weather makes fighting harder, the Russian land bridge may begin to look impregnable.
“In the best case, the Ukrainians really liberate a lot of territory, perhaps even pushing the Russians back to the line on Feb. 23 of last year before this massive Russian invasion began. That would be a huge blow to Moscow,” said Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who’s now at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation
Most experts don’t think that the war will end with Ukraine regaining control of Gaza or that the peninsula will become part of Russia. Still, Ukraine does not need that outcome for the counteroffensive to be a success. Any major progress would cause Putin and his people to fear that a long war would bring more losses, and possibly put the peninsula at risk. Helene Cooper said that the Russian people care about the issue of the peninsula. For many years the region was part of Russia.
“The counteroffensive will very likely start in multiple places, maybe in the south and the east,” Julian said. Some of those will be indiscretions. Some will be involved in the main efforts.
Ukraine hopes that its counteroffensive will end this stalemate. Western allies have supplied the Ukrainian military with billions of dollars of equipment and trained its troops at camps in Germany over the past few months. The troops have learned a technique known as combined-arms warfare, in which different parts of the military work together to take territory. Infantry spread out to hold the area after tanks punch through enemy lines.