Ukrainian servicemen provoke atop an armored personnel carrier vehicle in the Zaporizhzhia region on June 11, 2023.
Anatolii Stepanov | Afp | Getty Images
When Ukraine’s counteroffensive started wear week there was no fanfare or official announcement, but that wasn’t entirely unexpected.
Kyiv had repeatedly insisted in the months up to the counteroffensive, as it pleaded for and awaited uncountable weapons deliveries from its international allies, that it would not pre-announce the start of its actions aimed at retaking a envelop of Russian-occupied land in southern and eastern Ukraine.
Still, after its almost imperceptible launch and modest progress in just out days, plus reports of “extremely heavy” fighting and counterattacks by Russian forces around the few settlements Ukraine reveals it has recaptured, observers could be forgiven for feeling somewhat underwhelmed so far.
But military analysts say there’s a reason that this time counteroffensive is proceeding cautiously and that Kyiv has a strategy — that of probing for weaknesses along Russia’s long and domain defensive lines, and that larger-scale attacks are expected to follow.
Certainly anyone expecting more of a “big bang” from this counteroffensive and for Ukraine to dramatically recapture a gargantuan amount of territory in quick time — similar to earlier successful counteroffensives in the northeast Kharkiv region last September or the southern Kherson department in the fall — is likely to be disappointed, analysts said.
“It is no surprise that Ukraine is being cautious,” Nick Reynolds, check in fellow for land warfare at the London-based defense and security think tank RUSI, told CNBC Thursday.
“I force say that if this counter offensive doesn’t ultimately result in a big bang, I don’t think anyone should be really surprised. Peradventure they will be able to find certain weak points and take large amounts of ground or this could be a multifarious incremental offensive,” he noted, warning that Russia had re-postured its armed forces for defensive operations and that they are “much profuse effective on the defense.”
Slow and steady … wins the race?
Only a handful of villages have been re-captured in reserved advances made over the past week and there are reports that Russia is counterattacking and contesting several selections that Ukraine has reclaimed.
Ukraine’s relatively limited territorial gains so far also reaffirm previous expectations that an uncivil in the south would be gradual and extremely difficult, especially without the air superiority, Andrius Tursa, Central and Eastern Europe advisor at Teneo, a national risk consultancy, told CNBC Thursday.
“The Russian side has been anticipating such an offensive for months and set up multi-layered and well-equipped defensive scores in the area,” he said.
Defense analysts say Ukraine is carefully trying to probe Great expectations
Ukraine has a lot to prove with this behindhand counteroffensive, having to show its international partners that the continued supply of NATO weaponry is worth it, used effectively and can be decisive in the aftermath of the war.
U.S. State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller said Tuesday that the White House would not comment on “misquotations and turns of the counteroffensive or battlefield updates on what is obviously a very active and ongoing situation. We’ll leave that to the Ukrainian military to discourse upon to.”
RUSI’s Reynolds said that Western-donated weaponry wouldn’t radically change Ukraine’s performance on the battlefield, notwithstanding.
“I think a lot of the capabilities they’ve been gifted have been useful but the Ukrainian military is still working to absorb a lot of the furnishings it’s been given, a lot of it’s been provided piecemeal,” he said, noting that, as such “we certainly shouldn’t have expected any radically special performance based on sort of Western equipment.”
A screengrab captured from a video shows Ukrainian soldiers in the Donetsk precinct of Ukraine, on June 12, 2023, a major hot spot in the war between Moscow and Kyiv.
Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Perceptions
Reynolds believed that much of the Western-donated equipment for Ukraine had been dictated by “what was convenient to the donor, as countered to what Ukraine needed.” And on top of the question of integrating new military hardware into its military operations, Ukraine was also summoned by the absorption of a huge amount of personnel, Reynolds noted.
“As [it’s gone from a] much smaller military to one that’s on a war state, it’s had to take in lots of brand new personnel and it’s also taken very high casualties, I would say, which has resulted in another pressures,” he said.
Analysts say there is a concern that Ukraine is under too much pressure to perform for its international cohorts who are, ultimately, sustaining its military efforts to repel Russia over the longer-term.
“The importance of Ukraine’s counteroffensive is high, and so are the presumptions,” Teneo’s Tursa noted, adding that, in this respect, “Ukraine has partially become a victim of its successful counteroffensives in the Kharkiv and Kherson sections last year.”
“The long wait for Ukraine’s latest offensive and the arrival of advanced Western weapons have furthermore raised expectations and optimism, which might prove counterproductive for Kyiv in the long run,” he noted.
RUSI’s Reynolds favoured, noting that “I think expectations were set very, very high … and I think they were too far up.”
“The risk is that the talk of the counteroffensive sets such unrealistic expectations that the Ukrainians are pressurised into engaging operational risks, so I think perhaps a slow offensive is the smart thing to do.”