Washington, DC, September 5, 2023 --  

Frustratingly slow progress in Ukraine's counteroffensive is causing allies' tempers to flare.

The most important critics of are in America's intelligence community. Someone anonymously leaked an intelligence report on August 17 predicting that Ukraine's counteroffensive would fail to reach the key city of Melitopol by the end of the year.² That city lies along the southernmost highway linking the Russian border to the Crimean peninsula. If the Ukrainians capture Melitopol, they can block overland supply routes to Crimea, isolating Russia's south Ukrainian stronghold.

The problem is that in nearly three months, Ukraine has advanced just six miles toward Melitopol.³ In order to capture Russian supply routes, the total advance must reach sixty miles -- ten times as far as it has advanced to date. At this pace, Ukrainian forces not only won't be able to cut the land bridge this year, they won't be able to do it next year either.

Western critics say that Ukraine has failed to successfully deploy Western-supplied armor instead letting battles degrade into static First World War-like artillery battles. They also say that it has has spread its forces too thin by also engaging other points along the front near Bakhmut in the east rather then concentrating all its firepower at a single point.⁴ Meanwhile, others have argued the opposite point -- that Ukraine should have attacked more in the east to prevent Russia from redeploying its forces there to join the fight in the south.⁵

Ukrainians and their defenders argue that soldiers on the ground are best able to judge proper tactics, and that it is impossible to move forward quickly in the face of dense mine fields, flat terrain with little cover, and the inability to use air power. To march forward in face of these threats would be to send soldiers needlessly to their deaths.

The real reason for slow progress in Ukraine's offensive has nothing to do with Ukrainians and everything to do with two factors outside their control: Russians and technology. After a disastrous performance early in the war, Russian commanders have learned from their mistakes. Hopes for a quick victory in Ukraine's counteroffensive always relied on Russian defensive lines crumbling with low morale soldiers retreating rather than fighting. That hasn't happened. Instead, Russians forces have dug in behind well-prepared defensive lines of trenches and mine fields that often make advances over the flat agricultural fields of southern Ukraine a deadly endeavor. In short, the terrain favors the Russian defender.

Technology does so as well. The main tech advances of the war in Ukraine are with drones and combined anti-aircraft systems. Surveillance drones easily spot tanks and troops in open terrain, allowing killer drones or handheld anti-tank weapons to take them out before they reach their mission. The NATO doctrine of protecting tanks with air support is useless in Ukraine, partly because Ukraine has limited remaining air power, but more importantly because advances in computer-controlled anti-aircraft systems make using aircraft increasingly dangerous. Any aircraft deployed to protect tanks and troops on the ground are vulnerable to being shot down, again leaving advancing tanks and troops vulnerable to enemy fire. Early in the war, it was Russia's offensive that was failing in the face of Ukrainian drones and anti-tank missiles. Today, the shoe is on the other foot.

The big risk to the Ukrainians is not so much that their offensive stalls before its goal, but that its patrons in Europe and the United States lose their patience. If faced with a stalemated war that will last for many years, will Ukraine's allies stay on board?

While Ukraine is clearly under pressure to show progress, it is entirely possible that such progress will still come. Remember that Ukraine's quick victory last fall in Kherson was preceded by months of shelling along a static front line while Ukraine used their new HIMARS rockets to weaken Russian positions. Before Russia announced a retreat and fled across the Dnieper River, the situation in Kherson looked much like that north of Melitopol today.

And if severing the land bridge is the goal, Ukraine doesn't actually have to march all the way to the sea -- it just needs to control territory within artillery distance -- say 10 to 20 miles -- of the coastal highway. That may be an achievable goal even if Melitopol remains temporarily out of reach.

Related Web Columns:

Trench Warfare Rebooted, May 30, 2023

The Harder They Come, September 20, 2022

Lessons from the Front, May 31, 2022

Notes:

1. The Guardian, Russia-Ukraine War: Critics of Counteroffensive are ‘Spitting in the Faces of Soldiers’, Says Kyiv – As it Happened, August 31, 2023

2. Washington Post, U.S. intelligence says Ukraine will fail to meet offensive’s key goal, August 17, 2023

3. Project Owl, Ukraine Control Map, as posted, September 5, 2023

4. New York Times, Ukraine’s Forces and Firepower Are Misallocated, U.S. Officials Say, August 22, 2023

5. Forbes, Russia Has Deployed Its Last Reserve Division To Southern Ukraine. Did A Ukrainian Screw-Up Make That Possible? September 1, 2023