September 04, 2023
Perseverance and Adaptation: Ukraine’s Counteroffensive at Three Months
This article was originally published by War on the Rocks.
On June 4, Ukraine launched its long-awaited offensive. The operation has proven to be a test of Ukrainian determination and adaptation. Despite stiff resistance, Ukrainian forces have made steady gains in a set-piece battle against a heavily entrenched force. Ukraine’s main effort is a push from Orikhiv, with the goal of driving south past Tokmak and ideally reaching Melitopol. If successful, this would sever Russian lines along the Black Sea coast and endanger supply routes from Crimea. The second is at Velika Novosilka, a secondary offensive operation likely aimed at Berdyansk, also along the coast. The third is a supporting offensive along the flanks of Bakhmut further to the north. Ukraine has made gains here, pinning several Russian airborne units. The offensive is gaining momentum, and much remains undecided, but three months in offers an opportunity to take stock of the operation thus far.
Western support thus far has been sufficient to avert a Ukrainian defeat, and arguably has imposed a strategic defeat on Russia, but not enough to ensure a Ukrainian victory.
This has become a war of tree lines, with shifts in the line often counted in hundreds of meters. Artillery fire and drones dominate the battlefield, as small groups of infantry advance through dense minefields, field by field, tree line by tree line. Progress has been fitful and slower than expected, as acknowledged by President Volodymyr Zelensky and now former Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov. However, Ukraine’s recent gains illustrate that it has worn down Russian defenses over time, leveraging an advantage in fires and long-range precision weapons to steadily press Russian forces back from their defensive positions. That said, Ukraine will need to both break through Russian lines and exploit that success to reach its objectives. Much could be decided in the coming weeks.
Read the full article from War on the Rocks.
More from CNAS
-
Andrea Kendall-Taylor and the Axis of Upheaval
Video
On the Russian Roulette podcast from CSIS, Andrea Kendall-Taylor discusses the rise of cooperation between Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, in what she has dubbed 'the ax...
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Max Bergmann & Maria Snegovaya
-
Addressing the Axis of Upheaval
Podcast
Host Tom Keatinge of RUSI is joined by Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at CNAS, as they discuss how growing cooperation between the Axis ...
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor
-
Splitting the Atom on U.S. Nuclear Strategy
Podcast
Earlier this year, the Biden administration revised its nuclear strategy, the nuclear employment guidance, which is updated approximately every four years. This time, however,...
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Jim Townsend, James Acton & Jon B. Wolfsthal
-
Sharper: Drones on the Battlefield
Commentary
From the battlefields of Libya to Nagorno-Karabakh to Ukraine, the deployment of drones has become a critical element of modern warfare. Will the explosion of unmanned aerial ...
By Anna Pederson & Molly Campbell
