Why Ukraine may be choosing a war of attrition: Its counter-offensive has yet to produce dramatic gains. That is not necessarily bad news
by lost_library_book
Why Ukraine may be choosing a war of attrition: Its counter-offensive has yet to produce dramatic gains. That is not necessarily bad news
by lost_library_book
14 comments
Copy of paywalled text:
It is now two months since Ukraine launched its counter-offensive against Russian lines that stretch across 1,000km of occupied territory. It is just over a week since the campaign appeared to be entering a distinct second phase.
The first phase got off to a bad start when an overambitious thrust by newly formed mechanised units swiftly became bogged down. It was subsequently marked by concerted attempts to use Ukraine’s advantage in long-range firepower to disrupt Russian supply lines and destroy its logistical hubs and command centres. The aim is to reduce the ability of Russian forces to respond to Ukraine’s “probing” operations, which are seeking out gaps and weaknesses. (The tactics are similar to the “bite and hold” approach used by both sides in the first world war.)
These operations have recently been supplemented by small-scale drone strikes on Moscow and a series of attacks by Ukraine’s developing fleet of naval drones on Russian patrol vessels in the Black Sea. The Moscow drones have more psychological than military value. They are intended to drive home the message to Muscovites that they are not immune from the conflict, and that the Kremlin has struggled to stave off cross-border threats.
Ukraine’s backers thought a decisive shift might have begun last week with the commitment on July 26th of the army’s new 10th Corps, which includes three brigades equipped with Western kit. But although progress is being made along the three main axes of attack, it is still a grindingly hard attritional slog.
Russian sources quoted by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) report that Ukrainian forces are continuing to attack both to the north-west and south-west of Bakhmut, as well as in the area that borders western Donetsk and eastern Zaporizhzhia, and in western Zaporizhzhia (see map). On July 31st Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, announced that over the previous week Ukrainian forces had liberated an additional two square kilometres of territory around Bakhmut, and 12.6 square kilometres towards Berdiansk and Melitopol. This made a total of some 200 square kilometres retaken since the start of the counter-offensive.
That suggests that as yet there has been no great change in tempo, and that the arrival of the 10th may in fact have been designed primarily to provide some relief to the 9th Corps—which had borne the brunt of the fighting since early June—rather than initiate a distinctive new phase in operations.
Britain’s chief of the defence staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, has described Ukraine’s operational strategy as “starve, stretch and strike”. The starve (attacks on logistics hubs) and stretch (probes and feints across multiple axes) phases are running concurrently. At some point General Valery Zaluzhnyi, the commander of Ukrainian armed forces, will have to decide when and how to conduct the strike phase, which will involve the deployment of fresh brigades to force their way through minefields towards the main Russian defensive line before punching through it. That does not appear to have happened yet.
Ukraine’s tight operational security means that it is far from clear which of the three axes is likely to be chosen by General Zaluzhnyi for the main thrust when it comes. As happened last year when the focus suddenly switched from Kherson to Kharkiv, the decision will be opportunistic, and fraught with risk and cost.
Driving south from Zaporizhzhia via Tokmak down to Melitopol and the Sea of Azov, a distance of 200km, would offer Ukraine the greatest strategic reward. It would split Russian forces, cut their land bridge to Crimea and put much of that peninsula within range of artillery shells and missiles. But it would also involve breaching not just the first heavily fortified Russian lines, but pushing on through the most densely defended area of the entire front.
As the Ukrainians discovered in early June large armoured formations, which cannot hide from the fleets of patrolling Russian drones, become extremely vulnerable to air attack when held up by minefields and other obstacles. The limited success the Ukrainians are currently enjoying is mostly the result of actions carried out by units at the platoon and company level, using tree-lines and small settlements for cover.
An alternative might be to capitalise on weaker Russian defences in the east around the destroyed town of Bakhmut, and then head south into Donbas. That would be politically damaging for the Russians, who have invested so much blood and effort in the region, but less strategically advantageous for the Ukrainians than reaching the coast. However, by focusing on Bakhmut now, Ukraine is pulling some Russian forces away from the south, and thus possibly opening up other gaps.
When the strike does come, much will depend on whether the Russians manage to withdraw from exposed positions in an orderly way, retreating to more defensible lines, or if their troops, hollowed out by months of combat without relief, crack because of exhaustion, failing morale, poor leadership and shortages of munitions. This will be both the measure of the effectiveness of Ukrainian attrition since mid-June, and a test for a Russian command that has not recovered from the fissures exposed by the antics of Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Even then Sir Lawrence Freedman, a military strategist, warns against expecting a sudden switch into the “dash and drama” of highly mobile warfare. He argues that in the 1980s Western armed forces, particularly the Americans, became so enamoured of the potential for knitting together advanced equipment that defeating an enemy rapidly by swift, audacious moves became almost standard operating procedure. After being put into practice in the first Gulf war, the obsession with an updated version of blitzkrieg took even tighter hold. Hence the widespread frustration that the Ukrainians, despite their new nato kit, have not managed something similar.
But as Sir Lawrence suggests, this is an unfair criticism. In their wars the Americans were able to bring overwhelming firepower and air supremacy to the battlefield, neither of which has been available to the Ukrainians. Nor have the Ukrainians had decades to master combined-arms warfare. And Russia has been able to rely on huge numbers of drones to boost its defences, with an impact similar to that of the machine gun in the first world war.
The Ukrainians must achieve some degree of success before autumn mud further hampers offensive options. They need it for the morale of their own soldiers and civilians; they need it to maintain the confidence of allies that they can eventually prevail; and they need it to convince the man in the Kremlin that his options are only going to get worse.
But how should Ukrainian success be measured? As Michael Kofman and Franz-Stefan Gady, analysts who have made frequent visits to the front, argued recently in The Economist, Ukraine should be helped to “fight the way it fights best”, not encouraged to ape Western best practice. And that, as Sir Lawrence concludes, means accepting the logic of attrition.
this is the first article, at least that i saw, that actually addresses not only UA’s “slow counter offensive” but also explains why is it slow, plus it explains why it’s stupid to apply the western combined arms doctrine to this counter offensive.
the only thing it lacks is another reason why it’s “slow”, west being indecisive and hesitant with the supply of essential weapons and west being still a big sponsor of russian war economy.
also, they mention Bakhmut or Tokmak directions, but forget about Kherson->Oleshky vector, which might be a boiling point with potential of break through as well.
still, finally a better article than the majority of whiny bullshit (bbc, cough) that expects action film-like mass assault and instant victory.
The switch to a counter-offensive through attrition is certainly not good news. Russia is able to absorb losses and re-constitute forces at a higher rate than Ukraine. Russia is able to find upwards of 20K newly mobilized troops a month. Ukraine would have to be consistently attritting 1K of Russian troops every single day to really make Russia hurt, but those 1K days are exceedingly rare. Most days are in the 400 to 600 range.
Worse, if no significant territorial gains are achieved this year there is a good chance fatigue will set in amongst some of Ukraine’s allies leading to a lessening of support. The lack of clear Ukraine victories will make Biden vulnerable in the upcoming US election to critics of his Ukraine policies.
In short, to ensure support keeps coming at a robust clip Ukraine needs to show decisive success in the next couple months.
From my armchair general perspective, it looks like Ukraine really won’t be able to make significant territorial gains until they achieve air superiority. They might be better off just taking a conservative defensive approach until they can field 100 or so F-16s to finally exert air supremacy. The way it is now Ukraine doesn’t have total supremacy in anything. They don’t have overwhelming supremacy in artillery rounds. They don’t have supremacy in tanks. They don’t have supremacy in long range precision missiles. They don’t even have supremacy in cheap short range drones (i.e. since Russia has better sourcing from China). Until Ukraine gains complete supremacy in one or more area they will just be wasting their soldier’s lives in futile offensives.
Thanks, OP. First well presented article I have seen in a while about the counteroffensive
It’s not bad news as long as Ukraine can be just a strong next summer
Russia has always won wars by force of numbers.
A war of attrition is war Ukraine will lose.
A heroic effort but doomed to fail in the end.
Here’s a cynical take on the situation that I don’t see discussed much: I think the US wants the progress to be slow so the RU army is destroyed. The US doesn’t care much about Ukraine victory. They want a Russia that is unable to credibly threaten it’s neighbors or western interests. Ukraine victory is a distant secondary concern. If the war proceeds slowly, the RU army will continue to deplete in Ukraine. If Ukraine breaks through and victory seems inevitable, then Russia could retreat and its army could live to fight another day, even if that would be the end of Putin. The US is willing to sacrifice Ukraine if Russia loses it’s military for a generation.
Just give Ukraine all the airforce it needs. It might be possible to liberate without infantry if Ukraine keeps killing circa 150 soldiers per day from the air. Plus its demoralising being killed without being able to fire back so just give Ukraine air superiority.
I’d rather keep soldiers and equipment alive instead of throwing people at a wall of mines.
I hope they keep taking their time if it saves lives.
War of attrition is not good news since Russians outnumber Ukrainians by 7-1 on the battlefield.
Ukraine is choosing a war of attrition because 1. It’s Soviet-style warfare.. it’s what they know best. and 2. It’s all they are capable of without having air superiority.
We saw what happened in the first week when NATO style tactics were tried, in the face of gigantic minefields without air superiority. The result was the infamous “Bradley parking lot.”
Frankly it was dumb as fuck expecting large gains without having air superiority and without having even given Ukraine the tools to try and gain air superiority (i.e. fighter jets). I think everyone was a little overly optimistic after the epic Russian collapses around Kharkiv and Kherson last fall.
I hope the realities on the ground re-incentivize the West to increase support to Ukraine. I’m not sure that UA can win a war of attrition with Russia.. we shall see.
Cutting the land bridge to Crimea IS a war of attrition.
I dont think it’s a war of attrition. I have read somewhere, I believe the combatfootage sub, where a foreign volunteers said they were able to make ground because they simply pushed through the artillery etc, the Ukrainian units would stop.
So I think it’s carry over from Russian tactics.
Ukraine cannot shit air power, they do what the can do.