Recently, the head of the military intelligence of Ukraine, General Kyrylo Budanov, maintained that his country and the invading Russian troops will fight “a decisive battle this spring, which will be the last great battle before the end of the war.”
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Although he did not offer a specific date, most military analysts agree that it will happen any time from next week, when the “rasputitsa” is expected to end, the spring weather phenomenon that, after melting the winter ice, turns the soils of the Ukrainian plains into a quagmire.
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“Once the soils are dry and hard, tanks, armored cars, and heavy troop and equipment transport vehicles will be able to advance.”, explained an analyst from the Atlantic alliance Otán a few days ago at a private academic meeting.
If the date of the attack is imprecise, so is the specific area where the offensive will start somewhere along the more than a thousand kilometers of open front, from the mouth of the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine to the region north of Ukraine. Bakhmut, east.
To define that point, the general staff of the Ukrainian forces and their Western advisers have spent weeks examining the movements of enemy troops and equipment in satellite images and analyzing their communications.
“Those images of intelligence – commented a few days ago the former Australian general Mick Ryan after a visit to Ukraine – reveal where there may be weaknesses in the Russian defense, as well as the location of their headquarters, the logistics of their troops, and the location of their reserve forces”.
Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are ready for action, but they still have to wait a few more days, while their commanders finish assembling the newly formed and trained brigades with help from the United States, Britain, France and a handful of other Kiev allies. .
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The wait should not be prolonged, for there will be no better time than the present, with Russian troops exhausted from months of attrition to take Bakhmut.
“The wait should not be prolonged – maintains an analysis document that has circulated in the chancelleries of the European Union -, since there will be no better moment than the present, with the Russian troops exhausted by months of wear and tear to take Bakhmut, an area in which, in exchange for a few kilometers of advance, have lost tens of thousands of soldiers”.
The new wave of recruitment ordered by President Vladimir Putin to replace those casualties will take weeks of training and deliveries of equipment and ammunition., before producing results. “The bear is hurt, it’s time to kill him”, repeat the Ukrainian officers at the front.
Where will they attack?
“Weather the storm, exhaust the enemy, then counterattack”, has been the triple instruction of the military high command that accompanies the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski. The first two objectives have been achieved thanks to months of resistance in Bakhmut and other points of the Russian attack. The question is if the same will happen with the third: the fast break.
The first and most delicate decision is where to launch the offense. And although the Ukrainian general staff is working on several hypotheses, the bets are centered on the 120-kilometer strip that separates the surroundings of the city of Zaporizhia, in the center of the war front, from the coasts of the Azov Sea, towards the south.
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If Kiev’s troops managed to cross that region and, for example, recapture Melitopol, they would cut the long land bridge that connects Russia, to the east, with the Crimean peninsula, southwest of the war zone.
Crimea, which had been part of Ukrainian territory since the end of the Soviet Union, was annexed by Putin in 2014. If Ukraine were to cut off that access, it would jeopardize the conquest of which the Kremlin is most proud. It is the kind of strategic victory for Ukraine that would force Putin to the table to negotiate.
And precisely because it knows it, the Russian high command has strengthened, with the help of Wagner’s mercenaries, the defense of that region. The line of protection is more than 100 kilometers from southwest to northeast with trenches two meters wide and a double line of dragon’s teeth, pyramidal structures of concrete and iron designed to destroy the tracks of the tanks and paralyze their advance.
A dozen new brigades with between 1,000 and 3,000 men each (exact numbers are kept in reserve), and another six reserve brigades, were almost ready last week on the Ukrainian side. kyiv has more than 200 tanks, 800 armored vehicles and 150 heavy artillery pieces. Ukraine has more tanks and attack vehicles, but needs them in other parts of the long front. In any case, what he has on hand for the counteroffensive is a powerful force.
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But there are weaknesses. Several Western analysts think that the number of artillery pieces is low for the size of the attack. Furthermore, to prepare for the advance, an intensive bombardment of the solid Russian defense lines would be very useful and kyiv has only a limited number of fighter-bomber aircraft, and will rely heavily on missile launchers and long-range guns.
But for that heavy artillery to be effective, it needs a huge supply of shells. And a few days ago, Zelenski complained – once again – to the NATO governments about the slow supply of ammunition. Without them, the expected counterattack could start but it would not be sustainable for the necessary weeks, and that could lead to the failure of the entire operation.
One of Kiev’s jewels are the US-supplied Himars missile systems, which have been weakening the invader’s rear, arms and fuel depots, and supply lines.
The Russians have wanted to destroy these missile bases, but they have fallen victim to deception: Ukraine has created wooden and metallic paint copies of these bases and the Russians have attacked them with great waste of ammunition. But, furthermore, in doing so, they have revealed their own artillery positions, and the royal Himars have shelled and weakened them.
According to former Australian general Ryan, the hoaxes will multiply in the days to come. Speaking to The Economist, Ryan explained that, before the actual attack, “we will see a lot of mini-offensives launched to confuse the Russians and mislead them about the real objective.”
But the Ukrainian high command will also have to fight confusion. One of the biggest challenges when launching an offensive is coordination: the high command must combine the advance of tanks and troops, with fire from heavy artillery and missiles, and bombardment from aircraft and drones.
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Tanks and troops cannot reach their objectives too early –because their own artillery can hurt them–, nor too late –because the enemy may have re-strengthened the attacked point–.
To avoid coordination failures, Ukrainian commanders have run hundreds of computer simulations with the help of American officers who are experts in combined operations. In addition, they accumulated a lot of experience in the September offensive in the northeast, and in the one that liberated Kherson in November.
the three wars
A few days ago, the Spanish analyst for the newspaper El Mundo, José Ignacio Torreblanca, explained how Ukraine is waging not one war but three. For starters, there is a “war where soldiers live (and die) in the mud of trenches pummeled by artillery” as in World War I.
Another of “combined arms operations (infantry, armored vehicles, helicopters and aviation) that seek to overwhelm the enemy’s position and gain territory, as in World War II.”
When this war ends Ukraine will be a digital and technological power, like Israel
And, finally, “a 21st century war dominated by data collection and management, drones of all kinds (observation, supply, attack and suicide), smart munitions, low-orbit satellites and the deployment of security networks. Internet on the battlefield.
In this field, adds Torreblanca, “Ukraine’s great asset is its young Minister of Digital Transformation, Mikhail Fedorov, determined to provide his country with unparalleled technological superiority on the battlefield”, which has allowed his country innovate “on the ground in a fast and decentralized way, fostering collaboration between developers, entrepreneurs and the military”.
“When this war is over, says the analyst, Ukraine will be a digital and technological power, like Israel”, and that is “the only way to win an enemy superior in number and strength”.
It is clear that the challenge for Ukraine in the offensive that is about to begin is to break the static model of the first of these wars, which only suits the invader, and then prevail in the second war thanks to the superiority it seems to have in the field of the third war, the technological one.
But these are all hypotheses. The truth will only begin to unfold when President Zelensky and his commanders give the green light to begin the advance, and it becomes clear, on the battlefield, how long the Russians are holding out and how far the Ukrainians are advancing.
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According to Michael Kofman, an analyst at the CNA, an American think-tank specializing in military issues., “Ukraine is able to sustain its counteroffensive during the spring and perhaps the summer.” But it will do so at an enormous cost that will surely exhaust its forces and also the capacity for financial and military support from its Western allies.
For this reason, it is essential that he achieve substantial progress and, if possible, give Russia a strategic defeat that forces Putin to finally sit down at the table, not to impose conditions as an invader, but to negotiate a more or less dignified withdrawal. .
MAURICIO VARGAS LINARES
ANALYST
TIME
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