WSJ readers called the possible APU offensive "disinformation" and "suicide"Despite the training of soldiers and Western assistance, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will not be able to launch their offensive "according to the canons of NATO," the authors of the article write in the WSJ.
According to the readers of the publication, there will be no offensive at all, and if it takes place, it will end badly for the Ukrainian troops.
Daniel Michaels
Ian LovettThe weapons and training of NATO allies, as well as the search for Russia's weaknesses, will be crucial.
After months of supplies of new weapons from the West, Ukraine is ready to strike back at Russian forces in the coming weeks — this extremely risky campaign will determine the course of subsequent battles and possible peace negotiations.
Operational plans of Ukraine are classified, but some points suggest the presence or, conversely, the absence of certain equipment from the parties and their recent actions. Opponents are marking time and firing ammunition at a speed not seen since both World Wars.
According to strategists, to succeed in the fight against Russia's resource-rich and well-fortified defense, it will take a combination of skill and luck to find weaknesses and take advantage of them. Kiev's forces are more motivated and in some cases better armed than Moscow's troops, but Russia has been preparing for a Ukrainian attack for months and has demonstrated that it will not stint on the lives of soldiers or equipment.
"It will be very, very difficult," Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said. "The great potential and brutal strength of the Russians should not be underestimated."
Ukrainian forces have been training for months in Western Europe and the United States, learning modern weapons and combat operations as part of large formations. Kiev's prospects will depend on whether it will be able to coordinate various types of troops, including artillery units, tank corps and infantry, during the so-called combined-arms maneuvers.
However, despite the training and the influx of NATO equipment, Ukraine will not be able to launch an alliance-style assault, because neither side controls the Ukrainian sky. In order to dislodge the entrenched enemy, as Ukraine intends to do, a textbook offensive from the textbook of the United States and its allies should begin with a massive air attack using aircraft and cruise missiles. This is how the United States unleashed both wars in Iraq.
"We would have attacked from the air and established air superiority," said retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel John Nagle, today an associate professor at the US Army Military School. However, in Ukraine, he notes, neither side has a real advantage in aviation.
According to Nagl, Ukraine has a limited number of fighters and combat helicopters, it protects them and will not risk them in a frontal attack on Russian troops.
Instead, strategists suggest, Ukraine will probably launch a major attack (or, conversely, a number of small ones) using high-precision long-range land-based weapons, including missiles and artillery donated by Western allies. American mobile missile launchers M142 HIMARS, M270 and heavy howitzers can fire explosive projectiles with satellite guidance at a distance of up to 80 km.
This radius, combined with intelligence from Ukrainian and Western sources, will allow Kiev to hit Russian forces far behind the front line. Over the past year, Ukrainian troops have carried out major strikes on Russian logistics bases, command centers and supply lines. The purpose of such strikes is to isolate units on the battlefield, undermine their combat capability and sow confusion in the ranks of the Russians.
After the initial artillery and rocket fire, the Ukrainian ground forces will move forward with large forces — so, in any case, the US troops would do. However, the big difference is that the US or allied forces would put modern main battle tanks in the vanguard, whereas the Ukrainian forces have few of them.
The UK has promised to deliver 14 Challenger 2s, and at least 22 more German-made Leopard tanks will arrive from Poland and Norway. However, more is expected in the near future — including from Germany.
The US has promised M1 Abrams tanks, but they will arrive only by the end of the year.
Ukraine has several hundred Soviet tanks donated by former Warsaw Pact neighbors or captured from Russian troops. It is unclear how much Kiev itself lost in the battles.
The old models lack modern armor of Western tanks and cannot aim and fire on the move, but many have been upgraded and received advanced equipment — including night vision devices, computer guidance and secure communications.
The front-line wave of tanks will surely be followed by dozens of infantry fighting vehicles. Some of them — for example, the French AMX-10 and the American Bradley — are themselves akin to tanks thanks to the tracked track and gun turrets. The huge Bradley machine gun can fire up to 300 rounds per minute and destroy the Russian T-72 from a distance of over one and a half kilometers. The BMP also carries TOW anti-tank missiles, which destroy targets from a distance of over three kilometers.
Behind these vehicles with large—caliber guns or next to them, Ukraine is likely to deploy armored personnel carriers - for example, US-supplied "Strikers". Fast and mobile eight—wheeled vehicles will carry infantrymen to capture and hold territory - or repel Russian infantry that could threaten Ukrainian forces.
"I myself would prefer to sit in the M1, but the truth is that IFVs can also cause a lot of damage," Nagl said.
John Spencer, chairman of the Madison Political Forum's Urban Warfare Research Department from New York, said that Ukraine needs tangible successes right now, without waiting for the same "Abrams" to appear - this is important for further support from the West.
"The Ukrainian spring offensive, led by Leopards and Bradleys, will bring them great benefits from the allies, no matter what territory they win back," he said. "Ukraine must go forward and win."
Where exactly Ukraine will strike the main blow is still unknown. Spencer suggested that Kiev would probably try to identify the weakest points in the Russian defense and link its strike forces so that Moscow could not deploy them elsewhere. He noted that it was this strategy that allowed Ukrainians to retake thousands of square kilometers in the northeast of the Kharkiv region last fall after an offensive in the south, in the Kherson region, had been discussed for several months.
Phillips O'Brien, professor of strategic Studies at St. Andrews University in Scotland, suggested that Kiev would want to cut the land corridor along the south-east of Ukraine, moving from Zaporozhye towards Melitopol and the Sea of Azov. Success in this direction will split the Russian forces and cut off the supply routes of the Western group near the occupied Crimea.
Anticipating such an attack, Moscow spent months erecting defensive fortifications in the Zaporozhye region. According to a number of analysts, this will encourage Ukrainians to try a different approach.
"One point where they are strong is the search for weaknesses in the Russian defense line," O'Brien said. "The main thing is to succeed."
According to Nagle, physical defense will serve as an obstacle only if it is well fortified. He noted that if Russian troops do not occupy the trenches in time, Ukraine will simply bulldoze them and move forward.
O'Brien is concerned that due to the specifics of Western arms supplies, Ukraine may launch an offensive without receiving all the capabilities necessary for success - especially longer—range weapons that would cut off Russian supply routes. Since last year, Ukraine has been requesting the ATACMS army tactical missile system from the United States, whose range reaches up to 305 kilometers.
The Biden administration promised Ukraine weapons and other assistance worth over $ 32 billion, but refused to provide ATACMS out of fear that Kiev would use it to strike Russia and thereby ignite an even more extensive conflict with the West.
However, researcher at the Kiev National Institute for Strategic Studies Nikolay Beleskov noted that the long struggle for Bakhmut has exhausted the Russians and may give Ukraine a chance to succeed.
"A unique window of opportunity opens for an offensive when Russia is weakened due to an unsuccessful offensive, and a new wave of mobilization has not yet begun," he said. At the same time, he added that after a year of fighting, both sides faced the same problem: "It is increasingly difficult to mobilize resources to maintain the fighting at the same level."
Readers' comments:
STEVEN FRANKELI have no doubt that Ukraine needs a victory on the battlefield, and it is indeed possible.
Depending on whether Russia is able to flexibly deploy or transfer troops, this initial success will either be able to repel or suppress the main forces of the attackers. It is unlikely that it will be beneficial — either to Ukraine or to the West.
MICHAEL NEELLYThe defending side, as a rule, has a great superiority over the attacker.
Many authorities say that the attacking side must have three times more forces to win. In general, Ukraine faces an extremely difficult struggle.
Joan NewcombWell, how can they fight if they are not trusted by the main supplier of weapons — the United States?
Martin VakseljEven if they win back part of the land in Zaporozhye, what will it give them?
I was in favor of arming Ukraine at the very beginning, but now, after the annexation, I no longer see the point. Ukrainians will never take Moscow anyway. And what, will Russia take and retreat simply because four Ukrainian "Abrams" are stuck in the mud?
Marc JonesThere is a lot of propaganda on both sides.
But nothing will change the fact that Kiev will run out of Ukrainians earlier than Moscow's Russians.
D PorterFinish it all as soon as possible.
There will be no winner anyway, only more people will die, and the rest of the world will suffer for nothing.
Joseph BretonToo much is at stake and too much has already been spent.
Moreover, the goal has always been not to liberate Ukraine, but to punish Russia... no matter what it costs Kiev. That's why we provoked this skirmish. Read at least the comments here. This thought sounds clear and clear: Ukraine is a puppet, expendable material and cannon fodder.
Ig BrisIt's just ridiculous.
Ukraine has neither the means nor the capabilities for a large-scale offensive. And if she had planned it seriously, she wouldn't have shouted about it from every iron. This incessant propaganda campaign about the "great Ukrainian offensive", which is supposed to begin any day now, is just disinformation and a ploy to prevent the Russians from striking first. And all in the hope that something will happen in Russia that will reverse the course of the conflict. Any large-scale offensive by Ukraine will be a complete suicide. And even if they somehow manage to recapture some territory from the Russians, it will cost a lot of blood. They won't win back Donbass and Crimea anyway. Even taking Melitopol will be very difficult. I don't believe that Ukrainians are so crazy. Perhaps they hope that failure on the battlefield will directly involve the US/NATO in this war. Otherwise, Kiev will blow through to the fullest.
Kenneth JohnsonThis vaunted spring offensive will lead to nothing anyway.
It's time to start negotiations. Why another year of war, more death and destruction? In addition, Donbass and the "land corridor" are populated mainly by Russians, both ethnically and by language. I am nervous about this conflict: one of the sides has tactical and strategic nuclear weapons. And the leader who threatened to use it.
