The debate entry expresses the writer’s opinions.
The Ukrainians have always been very disciplined with what information they let out. So when Twitter in the last few days is overflowing with photos and videos with massive collections of Ukrainian armored vehiclesthere is clearly an element of psychological warfare involved.
The front has been stagnant for the past week, except in Bakhmut, where the Russians have approached the city from several sides and now hold districts in the east of the city.
The Wagner flag has been raised on an administration building and Ukraine has obliterated a building inside Bakhmut with HIMARS, where there was probably a large Russian troop concentration.
Ukraine has used HIMARS, artillery and drone strikes against several targets behind enemy lines recently. Along the entire front line and especially on the Krym peninsula.
It can also be a sign that the offensive is approaching.
There are mainly three factors that determine when the Ukrainian offensive will come:
- When the Ukrainians themselves feel ready
- When the Russians have «culminated»
- When the weather makes the ground so firm that it supports a tank
In addition to this, Easter is a very important holiday for Ukrainians. The vast majority of Ukrainians are Orthodox who follow the Julian calendar and celebrate Easter next week.
Correct attack climate
Let’s start with the last one first. It is important that the ground dries up because the mud season is a very bad period to carry out an offensive. Just ask the Russians who were struggling in the mud this time last year.
It is a very bad idea to conduct a mechanized offensive where the tanks can only drive on paved roads. Then they become very vulnerable to ambush attacks.
Although it has been raining steadily in Ukraine lately, temperatures in both the south and north have risen recently. It will be between ten and 20 degrees every day for the coming week along the entire front.
That means the mud season is coming to an end.
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Have the Russians climaxed?
The other factor is whether or not the Russians have peaked.
That a force culminates does not mean that it collapses. This means that it has used up its offensive power and no longer has the opportunity to attack further.
It’s hard to say when this will happen, especially since the Russians don’t seem to have any special requirements for equipment, training, or a coherent plan before attacking.
Nevertheless, it seems that the loss figures for the Russians have fallen from just under 1000 every day a week ago, to just under 500 per day in the last few days.
This is a sign that the Russians are sending fewer forces to attack. The forces the Russians have attacked with recently have been light infantry with very little support. And they seem to have had a very short journey from the mobilization office to the front.
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Since Russia attacks with forces that have little training and equipment, they are “easy” to replace. As long as they manage to mobilize more people, they will be able to maintain the attacks despite heavy losses. Therefore, the Russians will not culminate completely.
The loss of equipment has been enormous and they are perhaps now so weak that it will not make a very big difference to wait another month.
The weakening of the Russian combat capability is probably so great now that it is a good time for a counter-offensive.
Ukrainian force build-up
The final factor affecting the timing of the offensive is the Ukrainians’ own strength.
Throughout March, new Western equipment has flowed into Ukraine. Leopard II and Challenger II tanks have arrived. The same has large numbers of assault armored vehicles of the type Bradley, Mader and probably also CV90.
This is equipment that provides a significantly increased impact for Ukraine.
The latest arms deliveries from the US also seem to contain the things you need a lot of in an offensive – rifle ammunition, artillery shells, anti-tank missiles, first aid equipment etc.
The Ukrainians take logistics seriously. Now the logistics service is working on large spreadsheets for various scenarios where they calculate how much ammunition, food, fuel, water and everything else they need, in order to maintain combat capability as the front moves.
They also calculate how many trucks they need to transport this and different scenarios for where the front will move and how fast it moves.
They must have a plan for all possible outcomes.
In the Kharkiv Offensive before Christmas, the Ukrainians took much more territory in less time than they had imagined. This led to major logistical challenges. They want to avoid that this time.
If the Russian front were to collapse, it should in any case not be the logistics that prevent the Ukrainians from exploiting the situation.
Joint training of great forces
The Ukrainians have had significant forces along the entire front to contain the Russian offensive that has been going on for the past few months. But we have seen little Ukrainian heavy weapons in this period. This is because the lion’s share of the Ukrainian forces have been conducting large-scale exercises in preparation for their own offensive.
The reason is that they conduct warfare in the same way as we do in NATO, i.e. a very organizationally demanding form of warfare on a completely different level than what the Russians manage.
The Ukrainians have conducted “combined arms training”, which, briefly explained, is an ability to use several departments, branches of arms and types of weapons together. Both being able to gather large forces in one place and use them as a coherent unit and being able to use several types of weapons together lead to a significantly increased striking power.
The Russian invasion last February is a good example of how it should not be done.
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When the Russians invaded they had a very “armor heavy” doctrine. This means that they had little infantry (foot soldiers) in relation to the number of tanks and armored vehicles. Russian tanks attacked without infantry support and were therefore easy prey for small Ukrainian forces lying in ambush with Javelin missiles.
Had the Russians had infantry forces and perhaps even helicopter support when they attacked, it would have been much more risky for Ukrainian forces to attack the tanks. The Russians had been much less vulnerable.
The lesson learned from the battle for Kyiv is not that the tank is obsolete and no longer relevant on the battlefield. The lesson is that using tanks incorrectly is not a big point.
We can see that especially in the recent Russian offensive where they did the exact opposite. They attacked with almost only light infantry, with almost no mechanized support. Light infantry alone and without support is very vulnerable and ineffective.
Had the Russians combined the two strategies and put in some training and preparation, the chances of success would have increased.
Ready for tank war
The tank’s usefulness on the battlefield will probably become clear when Ukraine launches its offensive. The British Challenger II tank is the heaviest in NATO. Ukraine has received 24 of them. They have become assigned to the Airborne Regiment.
There has been some discussion on social media that it is strange that the airborne regiment, which tends to have lighter and faster vehicles, has been given the heaviest tank in Nato. It is probably because they are not airborne in the same way as our paratroopers who like to jump out of planes behind enemy lines.
Ukraine’s airborne regiment can be better described as an elite regiment, which is often provided with the very best equipment. They already have Ukrainian-made T-80 tanks, which are the best non-Western tanks they have.
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This suggests that this is the regiment that will try to break through the Russian lines when the offensive starts. The Challenger tanks are heavily armored and can take a solid amount of beating. They are therefore well suited to be the tip of the spear that will penetrate. They will be supported by artillery, infantry and armored personnel carriers.
If they break through, the Ukrainians have large forces in reserve that can reinforce the breakthrough.
The Ukrainian army now has between 50 and 100 Western tanks of the Challenger II and Leopard II types. They may also have received some Leopard I tanks, but this has not been confirmed. In addition, they have received large quantities of armored personnel carriers.
Perhaps more importantly, they have received several thousand light infantry vehicles, which both provide some protection for the troops they carry and can carry heavier weapons to support the forces.
Offensive powerhouse
Offensive operations are largely about gathering power. Gathering enough combat power in one place to provide a local superiority so great that it makes it possible to break through a prepared defensive line.
It may sound quite straightforward, but gathering and coordinating large forces is very organizationally demanding. Those who have been on a NATO exercise know how difficult it is to coordinate two teams that are to carry out patrols in the same area. Imagine what it takes to coordinate several brigades in an operation.
This was an important part of the training NATO partners did in the period between the invasion in 2014 and the full-scale war starting in February last year. They started with training on coordinating operations between troops.
As they mastered and built competence, they increased the level of coordinated training to company level, battalion level and then to brigade level which they had reached in 2022. The ability to be able to carry out such large and demanding operations is a unique characteristic in Western military organizations.
For many reasons, the Russians are not capable of that at all.
In the Soviet era, they boasted of carrying out exercises with entire divisions in attack. But in light of the gap between alleged capacity and real capacity in today’s Russian army, we can take the Soviet claims with a grain of salt.
The Russians are struggling to build up a force of combat capability for a number of reasons. The most basic is that they are simply institutionally bad at logistics and organization in the Russian armed forces.
In addition, unlike the West, they have an extremely hierarchical organisation. All military organizations are hierarchical, but in the West all levels of the organization know what the goal is and what the intention of the leadership is. This is important because if something unforeseen occurs, you can make local decisions and act to the greatest extent possible to achieve what the management wants to achieve.
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That’s not how it works in Russia. Direct orders are given without context and no one does either more or less than what is stated in the order.
So if a supply division has been ordered to deliver artillery shells to point A, it does so regardless of whether the division that needs artillery shells is still there. This makes functioning logistics very difficult.
This approach also requires management to be physically present, pointing and giving orders. It has also proved difficult for the Russians.
This will be decisive
Ukrainian intelligence works so well that when Russian generals get close to the front they tend to be met by HIMARS. So have large troop concentrations.
The Russians, on the other hand, simply struggle to gather both troops and officers, because both parts are exposed to artillery attacks.
So despite the fact that Ukraine has received some of the best military equipment available, probably the biggest difference between the forces is that the Ukrainians are able to gather forces and carry out a coordinated attack, while the Russians cannot.
It will be decisive in the upcoming offensive.
Ukraine has great opportunities to succeed and liberate more territory in the upcoming offensive. The big question is how powerful the defense of the Russian forces will be.
Will they be able to limit the Ukrainian advance, or will the front collapse?
