Ukraine’s offensive has seen Zelensky’s troops running into a chainsaw

We are two months into Ukraine’s much anticipated counter offensive against Russia’s occupying forces and the war is approaching an inflection point. Do the Ukrainians keep going, or consolidate?

To date the offensive has seen President Zelensky’s troops running into a chainsaw. They’ve suffered terrible causalities while advancing just a few kilometres. They have yet to reach the ‘Surovikin Line – the multi-layered network of fortifications put into place by the former commander of the invading forces General Sergei Sorovikin.

Many critics are already saying the offensive has failed. There are scant few reasons to be optimistic although the possibility of a breakthrough remains. As the Ukrainian high command tells it they are still engaged in a lengthy process of degrading Russia’s defences before they move forward in strength. They did it in a smaller offensive last autumn in Kherson and Kharkiv, but there was a difference. There, they found a large hole in the defences and went through it. Now they are trying to breach the well-dug in Surovikin Line which was built over nine months and has at least three lines of defence, sometimes more, and each line has a minefield in front of it. Many of the Russians defending those lines may well be poorly trained conscripts with low morale, but Putin has thrown tens of thousands of them into the fray to plug the gaps and is more than willing to sacrifice them.

The Ukrainians are attempting a forward movement which most NATO generals would not contemplate without air superiority (or at least proper air cover), and it is lack of air cover which is the single biggest problem the Ukrainian military has. Its troops are highly motivated and reasonably well trained, albeit at breakneck speed. They are well equipped and have the latest NATO combat vehicles. But without air cover the men and women in these vehicles, and those advancing on foot, are at a massive disadvantage. The Russian mine fields channel them into ‘kill zones’ where they are then targeted by a variety of Russian weaponry able to operate freely without being attacked by jet planes and bombers.

Despite this, territory has been regained and some combat brigades and armour are still being held back. But for how long? If the gap is not found, if the lines do not crumble – what to do? In the event of no breakthrough, the Ukrainians have a terrible choice coming up. They could throw everything they’ve got at the lines to break them but risk even greater losses and continued failure. Or, with equally heavy hearts they can accept what is currently a stalemate, consolidate their limited gains, and prepare for another Russian offensive which is expected within a few months.

There’s another complicating factor. Accepting that the offensive has failed will open the door to sceptics in the West to openly call for Ukraine to sue for peace at a time when Kyiv would be coming to the table from a position of weakness. Peace talks as early as this year are unlikely, but this autumn it will be interesting to see if various capitals begin to shift their rhetoric from previous maximalist positions of Ukrainian victory to “compromises required to ensure a lasting peace”.

No-one would have as much vocal footwork to do as President Biden, but no-one would have as much reason to as him. Biden has said “as long as it takes” and “what literally is at stake, is not just Ukraine, it’s freedom…..Things have changed radically. And we have to – we have to make sure we change them back”.

Ah, but the war has changed as well and as it approaches an inflection point, President Biden approaches a re-election campaign. On the one hand he wants a Ukrainian victory to boost his numbers and the White House said recently it was prepared to go back to Congress to ask for more money to fund the war. On the other hand, recent polling suggests a majority of Americans oppose any additional funding. A clear majority of Republicans are against it, but more worrying for Biden is that 55% of independents agree and those are the votes he’ll need next year.

Biden is on record as believing there should be “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” and that decisions are for Ukraine to make. That is true in one sense; Kyiv can make decisions, but if time is called on support, then the choices they have are being dictated elsewhere.

We’re not there yet. The Ukrainians are still fighting, another small advance was made this week, and there are rumours that one of the elite combat brigades so far held back is readying to move. However, earlier this month this columnist was told by a Western Special Forces officer, who’d been asked to assess the offensive first hand, that “there is no way they can breakthrough in force,  and no way in hell they can reach the coast”. Getting to the Sea of Azov is one of the ways Ukraine can claim the offensive is a success. So far it looks as if they won’t make it.

As Biden said – the stakes couldn’t be higher. Perhaps he will stick to his guns and allow the Ukrainians to stick to theirs. But in election year he could also persuade himself that better a Biden White House trying to get the best for Ukraine, than a Trump White House eagerly pulling the rug from under President Zelensky, and, as Biden puts it, “Freedom”.

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