What Ukraine’s Western allies had feared for several months has now been confirmed by the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces: the counter-offensive against the Russian occupier will probably not lead to the hoped-for breakthrough.
After the start of the Ukrainian counter-offensive in June, President Volodymyr Zelensky and the commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, General Valery Zaluzhny, repeatedly called on their allies and arms suppliers in the West to remain patient as rapid successes at the front failed to materialize. In a candid interview with The Economist Zaluzhny says for the first time that there is an impasse in the war. According to him, there will most likely be “no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”
Zaluzhny, widely respected in Ukraine, states in fact that the technological level at which both sides are currently waging war is such that they can hardly drive each other out with the available conventional weapons. The war of maneuver that Ukraine had hoped for has de facto bogged down in a trench war, says Zaluzhny. It reminds him of the situation a century ago, during the First World War.
According to Zaluzhny, breaking the impasse in the war can only be done by concretely improving the Ukrainian combat power at the front in a number of areas. In an essay by Zaluzhny that The Economist also published on Monday, the army commander summarizes his most important points. Ukraine must gain air superiority, including with the help of the promised F-16s, but also with drones that can neutralize Russian air defenses and better protect Ukrainian troops against air attacks; an increase in electronic warfare capabilities, especially to make Russian air attacks more difficult; a significant improvement in the Ukrainian offensive capacity against Russian artillery – if only because, according to Zaluzhny, the HIMARS missiles are running out and the precision-guided Excalibur grenades have become much less accurate due to the Russians’ electronic warfare; and new equipment and ammunition to neutralize the vast Russian minefields more quickly and efficiently.
Western arms aid
These are just a few of Zaluzhny’s wishes, in addition to the existing arms aid that Ukraine already receives from the West. But the course of the much-discussed counter-offensive makes it clear that the Western aid Ukraine has received so far is not enough to drive out the Russians, or comes too late to make a difference. For example, Zaluzhny waited for months for Western tanks and long-range missiles and Kyiv is still waiting for F-16s.
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Since the start of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, the country has recaptured pieces of territory from the Russians along the southern front lines in Zaporizhia and Donetsk, and after the capture of the village of Robotyne a breakthrough seemed imminent, but the Ukrainian advance has not yet extended deeper than about seventeen kilometers . The Sea of Azov is still almost a hundred kilometers away. Ambitious plans to break through towards Crimea, or even as far as the ‘land bridge’ the Russians have created in the south between Mariupol and the occupied peninsula, seemed overly optimistic by mid-summer.
Zaluzhny’s forces were effectively stranded before an indestructible wall that the Russians had erected with vast minefields, an extensive network of trenches and underground tunnels, and even more mines. Sustained artillery bombardments and Russian air superiority made any Ukrainian maneuver a dangerous operation.
The Ukrainian army faces similar obstacles in the counterattack around Bachmut. And the situation is no different the other way around: the Russians took almost a year to take the relatively small Bachmut, at the cost of colossal losses.
Drones see every movement
One of the biggest problems, according to Zaluzhny, is that both sides use drones to monitor virtually every enemy move real time can follow, including troop concentrations or a column of armored vehicles. For example, during the bloody Russian attack on Avdiivka, he recently saw on a monitor how “140 Russian machines were on fire – destroyed within four hours of coming within range of our artillery.”
The Russians who fled were pursued by remote-controlled Ukrainian drones equipped with cameras and explosives. Conversely, if the Ukrainians go on the attack, it is no different, says Zaluzhny. Also with Western-made tanks. “The simple fact is that we see everything the enemy does, and they see everything we do. To break that, we need something new, like the gunpowder that the Chinese invented and that we still use to kill each other.”
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In the interview with The Economist Zaluzhny honestly admits that he had estimated the course of the counter-offensive differently. According to him, the Ukrainian army should be able to advance at 30 kilometers per hour after destroying the Russian defense lines. “If you read the NATO manuals and do the calculations, as we did, four months should have been enough for us to reach Crimea, fight in Crimea, return, and go in again pull,” says Zaluzhny.
Troop rotation
When the breakthrough did not materialize for a long time and his troops were stuck around the Russian minefields, the general started to have doubts. “First I thought there was something wrong with our commanders, so I replaced some of them. Then I thought that our soldiers might not be ready for this operation, so I started rotating soldiers in some brigades.” But those interventions also made no difference at the front; it gradually led Zaluzhny to realize that the technological development of both warring parties had led to a stalemate.
He also acknowledges that he underestimated how many losses the Russians are willing to sustain. Zaluzhny assumed that huge Russian losses on the battlefield would force Moscow to give up the war. “That was my mistake. At least 150,000 people have been killed on Russia’s side. In any other country, such numbers of casualties would have ended the war.”
What now threatens is a long war, with two parties that are actually equally strong, and can hit each other hard and exhaust each other, but not defeat them. According to Zaluzhny, a long war is generally to the advantage of one of the warring parties. In this case, that’s to the Russians’ advantage. “Because it gives them the opportunity to regroup and rebuild its military power.”
2023-11-02 14:28:04
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