What to expect of Ukraine’s grand counter-offensive – NV analysis
Battle of the year. The Armed Forces are ready for an offensive to liberate the occupied territory of Ukraine (Photo:Dmytro Smolienko/NURPHOTO via Reuters Connect)
NV asked experts to share their opinions on where and when a Ukrainian counter-offensive will begin, and what to expect of it.
The West and Ukraine have for several
months been pondering the prospects for a major counter-offensive by the
Ukrainian army. World leaders, top officials, politicians, military analysts
and journalists are all guessing when it will start, its main attack direction,
and its possible outcomes.
And the West is now increasingly expressing
fears that Ukraine won't be able to break the Russian army's back in one mighty
blow. Ukrainian officials too have started to call for caution: expectations
are too high, no decisive victory is coming is the message.
The words of Volodymyr Havrylov, Deputy Minister
of Defense of Ukraine, resonated against this background. He told UK newspaper the
Independent: "We will launch our counter-offensive – when and where
doesn’t matter now. (Then,) Russia will be in panic; you will see a lot of
panic."
But as of now, this remains only brave talk.
There is no clear timetable for a Ukrainian offensive.
“We really need some more time, not too
much. We will be ready in some time … I can't share with you," Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on May 15. But he did share with journalists
his belief that Ukraine would win by 2024.
At least 12 brigades with a total of 30,000
soldiers have been trained for the upcoming major Ukrainian offensive, Western
politicians and experts say. Nine of them were trained in Western countries.
According to estimates by Bloomberg, Kyiv has received at least 200 tanks and
300 infantry fighting vehicles from its U.S. and European partners.
That was the reasoning behind the U.S.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's recent statement that the Ukrainian Armed
Forces are 100% ready for a successful counter-offensive.
So what can we expect from the Ukrainian
Defense Forces? When will they launch the long-rumored major offensive? What
outcome can we hope for? NV asked these questions to three national military
experts: Yuriy Karin, a military columnist, coordinator of the Information
Resistance OSINT group; Oleksandr Kovalenko, a military expert from the
"Information Resistance" group; and Mykhailo Samus, director of the
New Geopolitics Research Network.
Here is a generalized predictive analysis
of the Ukrainian counter-offensive:
The theory of the big blow
The experts named the three most beneficial
areas for a Ukrainian large-scale attack:
- the left or eastern bank of Kherson Oblast (towards the
isthmuses leading to Crimea);
- the coastal part of Zaporizhzhya Oblast (from Zaporizhzhya to
Melitopol, cutting the "land corridor" to Crimea);
- Luhansk Oblast (from Svatove into the east direction to the
state border).
The Ukrainian army is preparing for a
possible offensive in all these directions. These prep works are similar to
that done before the liberation of the right (western) bank of the Dnipro River
of Kherson Oblast. It will require missile and artillery attacks deep within
Russian-occupied Ukrainian areas, with strikes to eliminate command posts,
ammunition warehouses, fuel tanks, logistics hubs and personnel housing
facilities, Samus said.
“If you look back at the Kherson operation,
everyone was calling and asking the same questions: ‘When is the attack going
to happen, why is it being postponed for so long?’” says Samus.
‘In Ukraine and in Western military science,
there is no such thing as ‘Let's capture a city by May 9. There are no set
deadlines, there are conditions for (conducting) such operations. And they’re
being created right now."
The experts interviewed by NV refuse to
speculate on the possible dates of the counter-offensive, only saying that it
could start in the near future. After all, the ground is at least ready to bear
the movement of heavy equipment.
All three named possible directions for a
"big strike" are convenient for the deployment of the Ukraine's
army's tank assault formations.
However, only the General Staff of the
Armed Forces knows what the actual plan is.
Ut Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces
Valerii Zaluzhnyi and his team likely have several scenarios for a grand
counter-offensive of this year, all experts agreed on that.
Eventually, it may not even be a single
strike, but a combination of them, depending on the situation, they said.
It may be, for example, an initial
breakthrough across the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast, followed by an
offensive from Zaporizhzhya to the south.
In this case, the Ukrainian army can strike
across the Dnipro in the direction of Crimea, cutting off weapons and personnel
supplies from Crimea to the Tokmak-Melitopol area. It would set the conditions
for a Ukrainian offensive from Zaporizhzhya to the east and forced the
occupiers to retreat to the east, to the devastated city of Mariupol.
The Russians obviously fear this very
scenario. Satellite images show many kilometers of defence lines and barriers
they are preparing north of Melitopol.
According to the UK Defence Intelligence,
Russia has completed three layers of defensive zones across about 120 kilometers
of the frontline in the southern part of Zaporizhzhya Oblast: a front line of
forward combat positions and two lines of more elaborated and continuous defenses
with a gap of about 10-20 kilometers between them.
Still, even such a deep defence won't be
able to stop the Ukrainian army, Oleksandr Kovalenko believes.
"Let there be even 10 lines, which is
actually even worse for the Russians. After all, when the first line of defense
is rapidly collapsed, the defending forces must be able to quickly regroup and
retreat in a controlled manner to the second line. Otherwise, the entire front
will collapse," the analyst said. "It all depends on how
professionally the Armed Forces act.”
The counter-offensive operation may go in
the reverse direction: starting from Zaporizhzhya and after reaching the Sea of
Azov, turn west in order to get to the Dnipro River from this side and reach
the administrative border of Crimea.
At the same time, the Ukrainian Armed Forces
army may launch a distracting secondary strike in Luhansk Oblast.
However, it may start with distracting
attacks along the entire front from Vasylivka (on the left bank of the Dnipro
River, south of Zaporizhzhya) to the state border in the north of Luhansk
Oblast. After all, this entire segment looks like a huge half-ring, with the
Ukrainian Defense Forces occupying the inner, shorter circumference, and the
Russians the outer. That's why it's easier for the Ukrainian Armed Forces to
maneuver their forces here, forcing the occupiers to play catchup. If the enemy
is "loosened up" by a few limited attacks, forced to hastily
"plug the holes" with reserves, the Ukrainian command will have a
chance to deliver a powerful cleaving blow in an unexpected place.
Moreover, the battle for Bakhmut in Donetsk
Oblast will serve as an additional destabilizing factor for the Russian army.
It has absorbed significant enemy resources, and is continuing to do so.
Logistics and the controllability of troops
on all the length of the front line will be critical to the survival of the
Russian army, the experts said unanimously. And this has always been Russia's
major weakness.
The experts emphasize that a counter-offensive
shouldn't be viewed dogmatically. Not only can it be launched in different
directions and even combine several thrusts, but the operation itself can last
for an indefinite amount of time. In fact, it will most likely consist of
several separate stages.
"Each scenario has a maximum program
and a minimum program. Force majeure can change everything," Kovalenko
emphasizes.
"We need to take into account that the offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces will not be limited to just one operation, but may be periodically renewed," he says.
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