September 29, 2023 - 7:00am
“Every metre that Ukrainian forces regain is a metre that Russia loses”, Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said yesterday during a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That he is now speaking in terms of metres is perhaps revealing of the slow pace of Ukraine’s counter-offensive.
In truth, the frontline has moved by miles rather than metres but not by that many. According to analysis by the New York Times, less territory changed hands in August than in any other month of the conflict so far and, since the start of this year, Ukraine has gained 143 square miles compared to Russia’s 331 square miles in that time.
As the four-month anniversary of the counter-offensive approaches, the situation is unlikely to alter dramatically in the coming weeks. Though Ukraine has recently made some progress, Zelenskyy’s strategy seemingly hinges on making progress in the south by forcing Russia to commit forces in the east. At the weekend, Ukrainian Brigadier-General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi said that the next significant breakthrough would come if Ukrainian forces were to take the strategic hub of Tokmak in the south, describing this as the “minimum goal” for the counter-offensive. However, Ukrainian forces were still 20 kilometres from the city and struggling against Russian fortifications.
Even Tarnavskyi has acknowledged the slow progress of his forces, admitting that the counter-assault was not advancing as “fast as expected”, not least because the Russians have learnt Ukrainian tactics from earlier counter-assaults and adapted accordingly.
That is not the end of the challenges besetting Ukraine. In October, heavy rains are expected, which will transform the battlefield into intractable mud. Winter temperatures will then set in, making frontline progress difficult. However, Ukraine may be able to counter-balance this by using its new ATACMS long-range missiles to hit targets beyond the frontline and thus prevent winter being a total loss.
For its part, despite its larger population and resources, Russia is not in an especially strong position either. This week, the British Ministry of Defence reported that Russia’s military has this month been committing forces “piecemeal to reinforce the over-stretched line”, meaning that “a concerted new Russian offensive is less likely over the coming weeks”. Meanwhile, the reappearance of some Wagner forces on the frontline may indicate a shortage of personnel.
Ukraine’s troops and allies having understood that they are in for a prolonged and bloody slog, one must consider what could spur change on the battlefield. The provision of F-16 jets, which the Ukrainians optimistically hope to use in combat as early as this winter, may allow Ukraine to counter Russia’s current air superiority and offer ground forces better air cover.
Alternatively, change on the battlefield could come far from the frontline. Even staunch allies like the US and UK have had spats with Ukraine since the invasion. Poland’s recent threat to withdraw supplies of arms to Ukraine following tensions over grain imports demonstrates the ease with which allies can use weapons to Ukraine as a weapon against Ukraine in diplomatic disputes.
Visiting Washington DC last week, Zelenskyy vowed that his country is fighting “for every inch of Ukrainian land”. As two overstretched forces continue to be pitted against each other, for the foreseeable future, they truly will be fighting inch by inch.
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SubscribeUnHerd is one of the few realist voices in this war, even if it adopts a diplomatic tone.
The reality is that Ukraine don’t have a hope of reclaiming the territory south of the Dnipro. Russia will not give up their land bridge to Crimea.
To reclaim this land (and even Crimea itself, as Zelenskyy proposes) would only be possible with direct NATO involvement, at which point we’re in WW3 and those of us in Britain don’t have long to live.
Better to accept the border where it sits today.
The current military stalemate is very disconcerting. What incentive does Putin have to cut a deal now? If he can just keep the pot simmering for two years, he may think the Americans will probably lose enthusiasm and then he will be able to sweep in and collect his winnings. It was a pity that few listened to General Milley (Chairman COS) in November 2022 when he suggested that it was a good time to talk peace. I suspect a good deal was available then. The risk is that the West is going to be faced soon with a choice between escalation, a long war or yet another defeat. Still, in war everything is uncertain so maybe the Ukrainians will get lucky and the West will be spared this choice. Not looking good though.
The attrition rate on both side is currently horrendous, but only one side is motivated to fight. Russia is now dependent on conscripts who do not want to be there and have very little training. They cannot even mount effective offensive operations on a small scale anymore. They are basically pouring men into a meat wall to be shot away. On the UKR side they are being poured into a meat grinder of drone strikes and artillery fire. I was pessimistic of a UKR breakthrough, and a full one is still difficult to achieve, but the pressure has built so much over the last week that there could be a local collapse in the south to Tokmak before the weather makes anymore advances too difficult. Putin will not be able to fight for another year without calling up a lot more men.
Or could it not be that the Russians are playing rope-a-dope, and will soon go in for the know out blow once the Ukrainians have exhausted themselves. And it is a mistake to believe that only the Ukrainian side is motivated to fight. I would say the Ukrainian armed forces are dejected since hey have taken such huge losses. The truth is the Ukrainians cannot in just as the South could never win against the North in the American Civil War. Yes, they could win a few battles, but ultimately the South could not overcome the industrial might of the north. Exactly the same type of thing applies to the Ukraine-Risdsia war, which in effect is nothing more than a border dispute which really should not concern us in the West as it has no implications whatsoever for our own security.
It will probably be next year before the Russians make thier big move, they are slowly building a large army rumoured to be 1 million men, its suits them to sit back a let the Ukrainians lose all their equipment and thousands of men for small gains
They amassed 100,000 men in the East only for the advance to fail completely there once a couple of UKR brigades were redeployed. Then RUS had to rush 10s of thousands of that 100k to the south to plug the gap. They are being shot away as each day passes. RUS deployed 2 of its last elite brigades to stop a collapse south of Robtyne in the last few weeks and both those are now close to combat ineffectiveness due to their losses. There is no way RUS is assembling a million man army. In any meaningful sense. And any belief that they are is pure cope and propaganda. They could maybe force a million civilian men to stand in a few fields, but they would have no real training. RUS may well hold on to parts of the East and even south of UKR by the time UKR forces and supplies are exhausted but they are a long way off being able to launch any large scale offensive operations.
They are clearly building up for something next year, thats why they a getting millions of shells from North Korea, the tank factory in the Urals is producing Tanks as fast as possible, Putin has banned Diesel exports, is he stock piling fuel for some reason ?
This time next year the war will still be on going
I would not be surprised if Putin is calculating about making an impact in the 2024 American election through a massive show of force.
I thought they were playing rope a dope all summer, now I’m not so sure. I wouldn’t be surprised if UKR do make a significant breakthrough in south in the not too distant future, although it will certainly be difficult. Some form of stalemate is the likely outcome unless Putin gets taken out by his own.
I’d be surprised if there was a large scale Russian counter offensive due to the total dominance Ukraine has in Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) thanks to their American allies capabilities.
It will be very difficult for the Russians to effectively conceal their dispositions, which means that Ukraine is less likely to overextend themselves on the offensive if they know significant Russian formations are available for a counter offensive.
Agree absolutely with your last sentence Johann. Next year will be the tenth anniversary of the Euromaidan revolution in Kiev which prompted Donetsk and Luhansk to break away in the Donbas region after Russia took back Crimea, which, like the Donbas, used to be Russian territory. It is exactly over these two areas that they are still fighting over today. As you rightly say, this is a border dispute which should not concern us.
Um. Not sure about this. The Ukrainian war may currently resemble a border dispute but it started more boldly with an attempted capture of Ukraine’s capital. Equally, if Russia has the upper hand militarily in a year or two, it would not be surprising if their war aims expanded again.
So unmotivated that they have held and contained “The” Ukrainian offensive for 4 months within a “security/killing zone” before their first echelon of “in depth” defences, aka a “fire sack”, that has reduced across the 600 mile front, a third “NATO” trained army supplemented by a third plus draft of not very willing Ukrainian conscripts (I know 5 men who have evaded) , to their reserves, despite being equipped with ” game changing” goodies from the west.
Putin and Russian army today initiated next Russian draft, and explicitly declared that given 300k plus men who so far have voluntarily joined Russian army and are being trained and kept in reserve, no conscript will, or be required to, enter the fray.