Ukraine's successful offensive: is it a turning point in the war with Russia?
Military experts note that Ukrainian armed forces have the initiative, but call for caution.
By Pavel Aksenov and Liza Fokht
Ukraine’s rapid counteroffensive in Kharkiv province has changed the situation on the front dramatically. The front line has moved much further east: but is it fair to say that the very trajectory of the conflict has changed and that we are now at a major turning point?
So far, the war could be roughly divided into two stages. The first, which began February 24, saw Russia attempt to capture Kiev and Kharkiv with rapid assaults, occupying territories in southern Ukraine. The second stage began after Russian troops withdrew from Kiev and its suburbs. Russian forces then began their slow advance in Donetsk and Lugansk provinces, clearing the way with artillery bombardment.
Could a third, new stage have begun in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict?
For months, the news had consisted of reports about where and how the Russian army was advancing, which locations were being attacked or occupied, and the response by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Now the news report first on Ukrainian advances, and then on the Russian response. Essentially, this is the media reflecting the struggle for strategic initiative – the most important factor in any war.
Since the end of August, Ukraine has regained initiative with a counteroffensive, first towards Kherson then Kharkiv, and Russian actions have been mostly responsive. In this regard the war has thus entered a new phase, whereas before, Ukraine had been defensive and reactive.
In a military conflict, strategic initiative is the ability of one side or the other to dictate the place, time and nature of hostilities to its advantage.
Responding to challenges is much more difficult than creating them. The proactive side, which holds the initiative, has the time and opportunity to prepare well for the offensive.
The other side, responding to dynamic actions, is forced to quickly transfer its reserves, take them into battle unprepared, and spend its assets and resources containing threats.
The way that strategic initiative is portrayed in the media differs from how this conflict looks from a military science perspective. Military experts, contacted by the BBC Russian Service for further insight, assess the situation at the front in various ways.
Israeli military expert David Gendelman believes that the initiative has been in the hands of the Armed Forces of Ukraine since the end of August, when active hostilities commenced near Kherson.
Matthieu Boulègue, an expert on Eurasian security and international conflicts and a researcher at the British think tank Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs), is much more cautious in his assessments.
"The problem at this stage is that it is a bit too early to determine whether Ukrainian advances and Ukrainian counteroffensives will definitely regain a form of military initiative or if it will stagnate, if not stop, at some point earlier than we anticipate. So, I think the jury's still out. You cannot judge a counteroffensive or several counteroffensives of that size from the first few days of the operations. It will take weeks before we have much more clarity on how far they can push, what's the level of resistance from Russian forces, you know, some form of counter counteroffensives and where this will all go in terms of changing the tide of war," he said.
Was there a clear threat?
The offensive in Kharkiv province and all the circumstances in which it took place leave many questions. The main one is how Ukraine could have gained the element of surprise?
An operation of this size must have been prepared long before it began, and many more people must have known about it.
Operations on this scale require so many assets and resources from the early stages that it seems impossible for the enemy’s plans not to be revealed by intelligence. However, the Ukrainian offensive appears to have taken the Russian forces by surprise.
"Reports about concentration of troops near Balakleia had been appearing in open sources since August. Now, in hindsight we see that this was not just rubbish, which there is a lot of on the internet. Did Russian military command find it difficult to gather real time intelligence, assess it, and make decisions accordingly? We cannot say for sure, of course, but we see the result: Russian troops were unprepared to defend the area," explained David Gendelman.
There were indeed reports on the Internet – many experts wrote about them – but the situation in the Kherson district was so tense that it seemed this had to be the main direction of attack.
Mathieu Boulègue explains the success of the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the beginning of the offensive by two factors.
First, Kiev skilfully used the fighting near Kherson as bait, riveting Moscow's attention to the southern flank.
Second, no one did anything in particular to hide a well-prepared counteroffensive. In any case, Russia did not have the means to withstand the blow.
The acute shortage of Russian soldiers has been talked about for a long time. Russia is trying its best to find as many people as possible to replenish its units and there are campaigns under way throughout the country, even in prisons, inviting new recruits in exchange for pardon.
David Gendelman noted that this shortage of manpower on a heavily stretched front had resulted in insufficient troop density in some places.
In his view, the second factor was the slow-moving command and control system of the Russian Armed Forces and the delayed response to the situation.
Mathieu Boulègue believes that the general inertia inherent in such enormous mechanisms as large army units also played a role here. ‘By the time you realise something is coming, it doesn't mean you can move troops and equipment very easily.’
International aid
Planning such a massive operation involves complex logistical challenges. It is necessary to establish warehouses with ammunition, fuel and spare parts, provide troops with food, set up field hospitals, repair units, and much more. Furthermore, it is necessary to build supply lines so these resources can be sent where they are needed.
The military operation itself and the actions of combat units follow a carefully-hatched plan, which is synchronised with logistics.
In the case of Ukraine, logistics relates to the delivery of the necessary supplies to the place of hostilities, but at the strategic level includes the provision of weapons and military equipment from abroad.
Ukraine began to receive foreign military assistance even before the start of the war – the range of these provisions depended on the type of operation for which the Ukrainian army was preparing.
After the start of deliveries of HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) launchers and high-precision GMLRS (Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System), the Ukrainians began to strike at warehouses supporting Russian lines. With the supply of HARMs (High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile), the Ukrainian Air Force started to attack Russian radars.
In August, supplies of foreign weapons began to feature equipment used for offensive operations – light support artillery, off-road vehicles and mine-clearing equipment. Kiev was preparing an offensive along with its allies. And it was not only about supplies.
On September 13, the New York Times published an article on the most important factor in the rapid advance of Ukraine, which reported on how the Izyum operation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was being prepared.
"Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and senior Ukrainian military leaders regularly discussed intelligence and military support. And in Kyiv, Ukrainian and British military officials continued working together while the new American defence attaché, Brig. Gen. Garrick Harmon, began having daily sessions with Ukraine’s top officers."
During preparations for the offensive and related military exercises, attended by Pentagon representatives, it became clear that the operation would most likely end in failure. But then, according to the New York Times, after several command post exercises, a strategy to direct strikes more successfully was identified.
All this was subsequently translated into effective planning.
The article reports that it was in fact during the course of analytical staff work – based on United States intelligence data – that the idea to carry out two offensives arose: one towards Kherson and the other towards Kharkiv province.
What will the Ukrainian Armed Forces do next?
By the end of the offensive, Ukrainian troops had completely eliminated the Izyum bulge over Kharkiv and Donbass, and had forced Russian units in the east beyond the banks of the River Oskol, and in the north beyond the national border.
The goals of this offensive were not announced publicly, and therefore it is difficult to judge whether the Ukrainians stopped where they originally planned, or they were stopped by Russian troops, or if the initial offensive had simply lost momentum. Any operation will lose tempo as soon as resources run out, lines of communication overextend, or troops become exhausted.
Nevertheless the war continues, as both sides develop their plans and prepare to implement them.
According to David Gendelman, Ukraine obviously has the strength and reserves to conduct offensive operations, but these plans have their pros and cons.
"Continuing offensives in the nearest future has its own good reasons: to develop initial successes, before the enemy has been able to organise new defensive positions; to be precise, to not give him a chance to return to a balance that was undone by the offensive. Also, the desire to achieve as much as possible before the onset of autumn, when rains and mud will slow down the advance," he said.
The Israeli expert cites possible fatigue and the state of the troops as counter arguments:
"They, undoubtedly, had troops in reserve, though they don't tell us how many, or when they reach the point … where they need to recover units that have suffered losses." At the same time, he noted that it was quite difficult to guess the direction in which Ukraine could start a new advance.
Mathieu Boulègue believes that theoretically the Ukrainian Armed Forces could even continue the offensive into Lugansk province, but there may be many risks due to stretched out communications, which may result in the attackers being encircled or drawn into battles with Russian forces on the counteroffensive.
According to him, everything depends on how Russia will regroup its forces, if they will be able to put up resistance or are forced to completely leave previous positions. "This is unclear," he says.
What will Russia do?
An offensive operation requires much more effort than a well-prepared defensive one. However, with an over-extended front and a low troop density along it, the side taking the initiative, and is able to create a local numerical superiority can successfully attack, forcing the enemy to react while unprepared.
Hastily-organised defence is never as effective as when prepared in advance. Troops drawn into the area of a breakthrough enter the fray without having time to fully deploy and assess the situation, and consequently suffer greater losses.
Therefore, it is extremely important for the Russian army to accurately predict where the Ukrainian Armed Forces will strike next. That is where reserves will be gathered, fighting positions prepared, ammunition stocks organised, and so on.
David Gendelman believes that it would be a good idea for the Russian army to recapture the initiative by launching an offensive, but doubts that the Russians have the strength to do so.
"At this time Russian armed forces have to organise and strengthen defence in the most threatened directions. To launch their own large offensive will be much harder, and they might not have enough manpower for quickly forming a strike force: the 3rd Army Corps, reportedly, has been stretched in several different directions. Even if there is enough operational capacity, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s suitable for an offensive," he told the BBC.
There is practically no information about Russian capabilities, and expert Mathieu Boulègue expressed his doubts about this lack of understanding as to Russia’s future intentions. Can Russian forces even regroup, as the Russian Ministry of Defence announced?
"The question is, when do they have to regroup? Do they have enough force to actually do anything? What would it look like: a counter-offensive to try to stop the [Ukrainian] advance or the counteroffensive? Or is it already too late and there's no more troops to actually do anything? Because, you know, there's a lot of information discrepancy. So the question is, you know, what if there is a regroup?" he said.
But, in any case, Mathieu Boulègue believes it is important that "by the time the snow falls and the frost sets in, both sides will most likely want to take the best possible positions."
Escalation or forced surrender?
There is yet another development that experts have previously admitted is a possibility: Russia may begin to strike systematically at the critical infrastructure of Ukraine. Each country has "hot spots" on which both its defence capability and the civilian population rely.
The following Sunday evening, Kharkiv and Donetsk provinces were completely cut off from electricity supply, and a partial blackout was reported in Zaporizhie, Dnepropetrovsk and Sumy provinces. Missile attacks damaged Kharkiv TES-5, a large power plant that supplies electricity and heating to most of the Kharkiv region.
This caused a wave of indignation on pro-Ukrainian social networks, with accusations of Russia for striking at critical facilities. The reaction on pro-Russian networks was mixed, with some saying that shelling and bombing should be extended to the entire territory of Ukraine in order to persuade the country to capitulate, others doubting that such an action would lead to the desired result.
"We'll see if there is a systematic campaign of strikes against civilian infrastructure, so far there were strikes more akin to a knee jerk reaction to Ukrainian advances, rather than pre-planned attacks. If that starts in earnest, it would mean a new stage of escalation, as the war will be extended to places that had not been targeted or had been avoided, with an admission that whatever had been done up to now did not achieve the desired result," David Gendelman believes.
Despite its scale, the war in Ukraine still remains within certain boundaries. It is difficult to say whether they were somehow previously stipulated, or whether the parties drew them intuitively; so far there have been no targeted massive strikes on civilian – but nonetheless strategically important – infrastructure.
On the other hand, the West is also acting with some caution in the supply of arms to the Ukrainians. For instance, Ukraine has not yet received MGM-140 ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) capable of striking targets at a range up to 300 kilometres, Western-made tanks and much more.
Perhaps Russia and the West are trying to keep the conflict within some kind of limits, but if Moscow takes such a serious step as systematic strikes on vital civilian infrastructure, then these actions will, most likely, not remain without consequences.
Read this story in Russian here.