Seven months after Ukraine launched a summer offensive aimed at retaking Russian-controlled territories in the east, Kiev's forces have made little headway against fierce resistance from Moscow.
The main Ukrainian counter-offensive is taking place in Zaporizhzhia province on the southern front. This approach is aimed at cutting off the road from Orikhiv, east of the Dnipro River bend, and towards Melitopol in an attempt to cut off Russian forces near the Sea of Azov.
Ukraine also has other counter-offensive axes, such as one eastward toward the Russian-controlled Donetsk region and another outside the city of Bakhmut. More recently, Ukraine has established positions on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River.
Results of Ukraine's counter-offensive campaign as of December 2023 (Graphic: Reuters).
However, Ukraine's progress in the counter-offensive has been limited. Meanwhile, Russia has built the largest and most fortified defense line in Europe since World War II, according to Reuters.
Despite the Ukrainian counterattack, the defense line has so far held. In addition, the initial prospects of a Ukrainian breakthrough to cut off the land corridor connecting Russia and the Crimean peninsula have gradually faded.
“If the counteroffensive takes place under the right conditions, with a more strategic approach to training the Ukrainian Armed Forces what they need and what Western military experts require, this operation could make a difference,” said Franz-Stefan Gady, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
However, not all the pieces seem to be falling into place perfectly. As a new winter of stalemate approaches, Ukrainian forces are facing a number of challenges that are keeping them stuck on the front lines.
Challenges from the beginning of the campaign
Bakhmut, the bloodiest front in the Ukrainian conflict to date, was the decisive battle that led to the counteroffensive and impacted Kiev's military campaign.
In March 2023, as Ukrainian forces were virtually surrounded in the city of Bakhmut, facing high casualties and dwindling ammunition stocks, there were many voices both at home and abroad calling for Ukraine to withdraw its troops.
At the time, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces were determined to stay in Bakhmut to defeat Russian forces. Despite heavy losses to the Russian military, Moscow's forces claimed to have captured Bakhmut in May.
Some experts say Ukraine’s decision to stay in Bakhmut was appropriate given Russia’s heavy losses and the chaos of the Wagner private military. However, others say Russia deployed inexperienced soldiers, forcing Ukraine to exhaust its more experienced forces in the battle for Bakhmut.
The decision to hold the line at Bakhmut has held back some of Ukraine's best forces, including the 24th Mechanized Brigade and the 80th Air Assault Brigade, during the planning stages of a summer counteroffensive.
This forced Ukraine to deploy less experienced units, including the 47th Mechanized Brigade, to carry out the difficult task of breaking through Russia's fortified defenses.
In the initial stages of the counteroffensive, well-equipped but inexperienced Ukrainian units engaged in attacks on Russian lines, but they quickly encountered Moscow’s stubborn defenses. Some experts say Ukraine’s approach was inconsistent, characterized by a lack of communication, poor reconnaissance and targeting, and ineffective coordination.
This hindered the counterattack and was a mistake that happened to troops with little combat experience.
George Barros, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, told Business Insider that Ukraine's counteroffensive failed to make a difference due to early misjudgments by Ukraine and its Western partners about Russia's defenses and the success of NATO's tactics and training.
Weapon shortage
Ukrainian forces fire artillery in Donetsk (Photo: Reuters).
From the start, Ukraine had some weapons available to launch a counteroffensive. The High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), M777 howitzers, and counter-battery radars made a certain impact in the counteroffensive.
However, other equipment and vehicles, such as tanks and armored vehicles, are not really useful in penetrating Russian defenses. These vehicles face minefields, anti-tank missiles and Russian attack helicopters.
In addition, Ukraine also lacks necessary weapons and equipment such as mine clearance equipment, engineering vehicles, etc.
There are pieces of equipment that are being sent to Ukraine but are delayed, or Kiev is waiting to receive them. For some important weapons, deliveries are often delayed due to time-consuming back-and-forth exchanges.
Asked by the AP news agency in early December about the results of the counteroffensive, President Zelensky admitted that Ukraine "did not receive all the weapons we wanted."
Many analysts have criticized the US and its allies for delays in providing some of the weapons Ukraine needs.
According to Seth Jones, director of the International Security Program and the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), it is clear that "concerns within the US government that providing weapons to Ukraine would risk escalating the conflict, as well as increasing the likelihood of Russia using nuclear weapons, have not occurred."
In terms of US support, Ukraine has only received M1 Abrams tanks and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS). Meanwhile, training of Ukrainian pilots to use F-16 fighter jets has only just begun, so although Ukraine is keen to own F-16s, it will not receive these fighters until at least 2024.
Ukraine also has an air force, but it is largely made up of old Soviet-era military aircraft. It is not nearly enough to suppress Russian air defenses, provide close air support, and conduct the ground attacks needed to really punch through Russian lines.
Ukraine said its lack of air power had complicated its counteroffensive efforts. Experts also pointed out that even the West would have difficulty carrying out such an operation without overwhelming air power.
Ukraine also faces ammunition challenges, distributing artillery shells on the front lines even as Western partners ramp up production and supply of 155mm artillery shells and controversial cluster munitions as a stopgap solution.
Training and tactical challenges
In terms of training and tactics, some problems arose as Ukraine moved from Soviet-era weapons to complex NATO weapons systems, and underwent rapid training in complex operations and Western-style combined arms warfare in just a few months.
The results of the training were mixed. From the start, the inexperienced Ukrainian units were misdirected, slow to attack, in some cases failing to take advantage of advantages such as the element of surprise and struggling to make the most of advanced American weapons.
Just weeks after the counteroffensive began, Ukrainian forces have cast aside Western training exercises, returning to overwhelming firepower and infantry tactics as they seek to overcome Russian minefields.
When Ukraine's counterattack brigades went into combat in June 2023 after only a few months of training in combined arms warfare involving the coordination of infantry, armor and artillery, they struggled.
There has been some debate among experts and between Ukraine and its Western partners about whether Kiev is spreading its forces too thinly across multiple fronts. Some argue that the spread of fighting power across multiple fronts could make it difficult to concentrate forces for a larger breakthrough, but part of Ukraine’s challenge is to figure out where to attack and which Russian lines to break through.
Divide troops along long battle lines
The focus of Ukraine's counteroffensive is the Zaporizhzhia front, a battlefield seen by military analysts as the most direct route to cutting off Russian-controlled areas in Ukraine.
Stretching 80km from the city of Orikhiv, through the city of Tokmak and meeting at the city of Melitopol, the route is intended to cut off Russia's key supply lines to Crimea.
Although Kiev has kept the ultimate goals of its offensive secret, President Volodymyr Zelensky said last August that Ukraine’s offensive would not stop until Kiev regained control of Crimea. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and has its Black Sea Fleet headquarters on the peninsula.
For many Western analysts, the key to achieving that goal was to break through the supply lines linking Crimea to Russia at Zaporizhzhia. However, Ukrainian forces were eventually split into three axes of attack, including one as far north as the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk, where Ukraine had to bolster its defenses after Russia launched an offensive in October.
Russia's multi-layered defense effort
Russia builds multi-layered defense lines to counter Ukrainian forces (Graphic: Reuters).
The timing of Ukraine's counteroffensive played an important role, as it allowed Russia time to consolidate its frontline, especially in Zaporizhzhia.
Ukraine had to wait for months before launching its counteroffensive. Kiev trained its troops, assembled weapons donated by the West, and planned its strategy. During this crucial period, Russia had time to build trenches and lay mines along strategic areas of the front line.
Starting in late 2022, Russian forces, under the direction of General Sergey Surovikin, began building defense systems. Moscow has had plenty of time and resources to build multi-layered defenses that include vast minefields, anti-tank ditches, dragon teeth, and booby traps.
Based on intelligence gathered from satellite imagery, analyst Brady Africk at the American Enterprise Institute has pointed out a strong Russian defense strategy.
Africk described Russian fortifications between the front line and the city of Tokmak as dense and multi-layered, with anti-tank ditches, obstacles, fighting positions and mines strategically placed in the tree line and along key roads leading to the Russian-controlled southern region.
In addition, the flat, open terrain in the area makes it even more difficult for Ukraine to move forces with any element of surprise.
Slow progress
According to Africk, the slow progress of the Ukrainian army's counterattack has shown the density of Russian fortifications in the area as well as the limited resources Ukraine can use. After 6 months of fierce fighting, Ukraine has only advanced 7.5 km and reached the village of Robotyne.
Russia’s fortified defenses are one of the biggest challenges preventing Ukraine from reclaiming vast swaths of territory controlled by Moscow. Russia has built and maintained strong defenses with forces strong enough to prevent the lines from collapsing.
The Russian defense line included multiple layers of fences designed to impede tanks, while an intricate network of trenches and tunnels as well as strategically camouflaged artillery batteries, tanks and command posts.
This multi-faceted defense strategy has created a huge challenge for Ukrainian forces trying to break through the defense line. In addition, Russian artillery has been continuously deployed to support the defense system.
As Russia dealt with the Ukrainian counteroffensive, Moscow’s forces also used a flexible defensive strategy. Russia withdrew from territories, then counterattacked hard when Ukrainian forces advanced and were vulnerable.
Dense minefields under constant surveillance
Russian minefields pose a major challenge to Ukrainian forces in their counterattack (Graphic: Reuters).
In front of their positions along the front, Russian forces laid a formidable first line of defense consisting of a dense layer of anti-personnel and anti-tank mines.
Clearing the way through Russian minefields has become one of the biggest challenges in Ukraine's counteroffensive, in terms of time, manpower and machinery.
Ukraine used Western mine-clearing vehicles, tanks and armored vehicles to overcome the dangerous terrain.
However, Ukrainian military operations to clear paths through minefields are taking place under the close supervision of surveillance drones operated by Russia's new specialized drone units.
These drones closely monitor Ukrainian mine-clearing vehicles, providing information about them and alerting Russian artillery and attack helicopters. The drones’ increasingly advanced optics also mean they can see through traditional camouflage techniques such as smoke screens.
As the tanks and mine-clearance vehicles in front are targeted and destroyed, the Ukrainian assault troops in the rear will be trapped in the “kill zone” of Russian artillery. If the Ukrainian vehicles move around, they will continue to hit mines.
Ultimately, mine clearance was assigned to smaller, slower-moving units by Ukrainian forces, rather than deploying larger assault groups, to minimize the risk of casualties.
Despite few breakthroughs on the front lines, Ukraine’s counteroffensive has made some modest gains. However, Ukraine’s ultimate goal of retaking Russian-controlled territories remains elusive. In addition, Kiev is still trying to secure more arms supplies from the West as the conflict drags on.
Frontline forces are facing a shortage of artillery shells and have scaled back some military operations due to a lack of foreign aid, a senior Ukrainian military commander said.
According to Reuters, Business Insider, Newsweek
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