The Telegraph
Fresh Ukrainian troops are ready to smash Putin
David Axe – April 26, 2023
Russia’s winter offensive is grinding to a bloody halt in the ruins of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. That assault was Russia’s best chance at spoiling a long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Now there are just two things the Russians can do: stockpile ammunition, and wait for the coming attack. The assault could come as soon as the deep mud that’s typical of Ukrainian springtime finally dries up.
Even before a braggadocious young US Air National Guard airman leaked classified intelligence on Ukrainian preparations, it was widely known that Kyiv planned a powerful counteroffensive. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and other leaders in Kyiv have spoken openly about the coming attack: perhaps to inspire their countrymen, perhaps to spook the Russians. Perhaps both.
It’s one thing to talk up a risky, complex and potentially costly military offensive. It’s another to actually pull it off. And there are two key issues that could constrain just how successful the Ukrainian attack might be. Kyiv’s military probably has enough troops, tanks and artillery. But shortages of artillery shells and air-defence missiles could leave the attacking brigades exposed, and vulnerable to Russian defenses.
The Kremlin actually began preparing for the coming Ukrainian onslaught shortly after the previous Ukrainian counterattack, which kicked off in southern and northeastern Ukraine late last summer. Exploiting gaps between exhausted Russian regiments, two dozen powerful Ukrainian brigades rolled south toward occupied Kherson and east from the free city of Kharkiv, ultimately liberating thousands of square miles from Russian occupation.
After stabilizing the new front line, the Russians dug in.
“Digging trenches, setting up defenses-in-depth,” was the Pentagon description of Russia’s efforts since. The Russian lines are now defended by minefields, concrete anti-tank obstacles and earthen berms. On the far side, Russian troops await.
Penetrating the fortifications, in one or more places somewhere along the 600-mile front line, will be the Ukrainians’ first task, once they’ve decided conditions are right for an attack. In military parlance, this is called a “breach.” Achieving a breach is one of the most complex and riskiest missions in land warfare.
First, engineers have to clear a path through the mines. Then, they must blow up the concrete obstacles, fill in the trenches and blast or dig through the berms – all while under enemy fire. If they succeed in opening up a breach, tanks and infantry can pour through into the enemy’s undefended rear areas.
Ukraine’s attack last year succeeded in part because Russian forces hadn’t yet prepared extensive fortifications – that made it easier for the Ukrainians to punch through. Russia’s offensive this past winter failed because it never succeeded in fully breaching Ukraine’s own defensive fortifications in and around Bakhmut, Vuhledar and other key eastern towns. Soon we will find out if the Ukrainians can do better.
In many ways Zelensky’s troops are well equipped. Thanks to aid from its allies, Ukraine has plenty of equipment for making a breach, including mine-clearing gear and specialized armoured engineering vehicles. It’s also got hundreds of British-, German- and Polish-made tanks, many of them more advanced than their Russian opponents, and missile- and gun-armed fighting vehicles from France, Germany, Sweden and the United States.
Nato and other allied nations have trained tens of thousands of fresh Ukrainian troops to operate this equipment, and Ukraine has organized them in around 20 new brigades overseen by two new headquarters. Kyiv has managed to keep these untouched heavy brigades in reserve even as fighting in Bakhmut escalated earlier this year, cleverly balancing the need to hold the Russians against maintaining their striking power for a future counteroffensive.
The problem for the Ukrainians is that a breaching assault – and the exploitation of the breach once made – is practically suicide without a lot of artillery fire support and solid air defences. Big guns need to hammer the defending enemy troops and gunners in order to keep their heads down and give the attacking engineers time to work. Surface-to-air missile batteries need to ward off helicopters and warplanes the enemy sends to strike the forces assaulting the breach.
Ukraine is short of ammunition for both. If the Ukrainian attack kicks off with inadequate air defence and insufficient supplies of shells, its chance of success drops. A lot.
The ammo problem has been a long time in the making. When Russia widened its war on Ukraine in February 2022, Kyiv’s military still mostly operated ex-Soviet equipment. The factories which make ex-Soviet pattern missiles and shells are in Russia.
At the same time, the fighting has been more intensive than most observers anticipated. Ukrainian artillery has fired as many as 8,000 shells per day, every day, for more than a year. Over the same span of time, Ukrainian air defences have fired dozens of their best missiles every day. Every Soviet-made shell or missile the Ukrainians fired was a shell or missile they couldn’t readily replace.
The main solution, of course, was for Kyiv to reequip its artillery and air defence batteries with Western-made guns and launchers firing Western-made shells and missiles. While the guns and launchers have been forthcoming, supplies of ammo aren’t keeping up. The documents leaked by that young US airman suggest that Ukraine’s medium- and long-range air defences will run out of missiles in April and May respectively – assuming no changes in supplies.
Last month, Ukrainian defense minister Oleksii Reznikov said Ukrainian forces needed “munitions, munitions and more munitions,” including a million 155-millimeter artillery shells for Nato-pattern guns, in order for the coming counteroffensive to succeed. That’s on top of the 1.5 million 155-millimeter shells the United States alone has already donated, many of which have already been fired.
More ammo is on the way, including an unspecified number of additional shells that the Biden administration pledged on April 19. Two days later, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin III told reporters the USA and other allies “continue to rush in ground-based air-defense capabilities and munitions to help Ukraine control its sovereign skies.”
But it can take weeks for aid to arrive after it’s announced. And Ukraine can’t wait forever to launch its counteroffensive. Every day of delay is another day the Russians have to dig in deeper and add to their own artillery stockpile.
Zelensky, Reznikov and Ukraine’s front-line commanders face a difficult decision of timing. What’s the earliest date when the mud is dry enough and Kyiv’s forces have just enough ammo to execute a breach? Go too soon, and the assault gets stuck in mud and pummeled by Russian artillery and warplanes. Go too late, and Russian fortifications could be even more daunting than they are now.
What’s clear is that if Westerners want to see Ukraine win and the murderous Putin humbled, we should dig deeper yet into our own stockpiles. The Ukrainians are fighting not just bravely but skilfully: building up a powerful strategic reserve while holding a long front line against heavy attacks has taken guts and generalship. Zelensky and his troops have a genuine opportunity to push the Russians back, if we just get them the munitions they need as soon as we can.