Ukrainian counter-offensive: What’s the problem?

What is wrong with the Ukrainian offensive? Two military experts don’t just see a problem in the lack of arms deliveries.

Hanna Maljar had some success stories ready. “Gradually but surely,” the Ukrainian army is advancing on the cities of Melitopol and Berdyansk, Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister wrote on Telegram. In addition, with a view to the heavy fighting on the front in the eastern Donetsk region, she said: “Today we advanced further on the southern flank around Bakhmut.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, denied any major successes by the Ukrainian armed forces. “No, there are no major changes,” Putin said in St. Petersburg on Saturday. “Of course the enemy was stopped everywhere and pushed back,” he claimed.

Much of the information about troop movements in this war is difficult to independently verify. But Ukraine has actually been able to liberate more land from the Russians in the first few months of its long-touted counter-offensive than Putin’s army has been able to conquer in the past twelve months. Nevertheless, the offensive is sluggish, as the Ukrainian leadership recently admitted.

It’s not just the guns that are the problem

The lack of arms deliveries is repeatedly given as the reason: Ukraine is primarily lacking in supplies of artillery ammunition, only Great Britain (Storm Shadow) and France (SCALP) have delivered long-range missiles so far, and Western-style fighter jets such as the F-16 from the USA have existed none yet.

But the lack of arms deliveries is only a problem for Ukraine. At least that’s what the military experts Franz-Stefan Gady and Michael Kofman say: In essence, the Ukrainian armed forces also lack sound training and experience, write Kofman and Gady in a guest article for the British weekly “The Economist.”

“New units that have been trained in the West for only a few months can perform well in individual combat tasks, but they lack cohesion,” it says. Numerous Ukrainian soldiers have been trained in new weapons in the West in recent months. In Germany, for example, there was training on the Leopard battle tanks or the Panzerhaubitze 2000.

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What: Reuters

“Lead to misplaced optimism”

The problem: the soldiers were apparently able to learn how to use the weapons quickly. However, that does not mean that the troops are also good at using weapons in conjunction with other systems and units: “The ability of the Ukrainian soldiers to quickly master Western technology led to misplaced optimism that the time it would take to develop coherent Developing combat units could be short-circuited.”

Accordingly, the Ukrainian units often lack the experience to coordinate their actions, even on a large scale, and to deploy their soldiers in a coordinated manner over a larger area. “Today, the Ukrainian army is one of the most experienced in the world, but it still lacks experience in coordinating large-scale offensive actions,” the report said.

Heavy losses in Robotyne

There have been repeated examples of failed Ukrainian attacks recently: The US Institute for the Study of War recently reported that the Ukrainian offensive had suffered several setbacks south-east of the city of Zaporizhia. An allegedly failed attack near the town of Robotyne was particularly spectacular. Here you can read more about it.

At the same time, the experts make it clear that further arms deliveries would be appropriate. However, one must assume that no new weapon system will fundamentally change the course of the war overnight. This makes coordination even more complicated, for example with the F-16. Their effective use will “probably take years”.

Russian positions difficult to capture

In addition, the Russian troops were able to prepare for the attacks long enough. In the city of Bachmut, which has long been fought over, this is not the case. In southern Ukraine, on the other hand, the Russians have managed to dig in well into their positions, which makes conquests difficult: the battlefield is heavily mined, and Ukraine is also fighting anti-tank missiles, attack drones and aircraft.

Gady and Kofman therefore also see the need to deliver more weapons – and in doing so they hardly differ from the demands from Kiev: Ukraine would need more equipment for mine clearance, short-range air defense systems, combat aircraft and more artillery ammunition.