Colonel Khodarenok: 1,500 M1 Abrams tanks are needed for a new counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
October 4 marks exactly four months since the beginning of the Ukrainian "counteroffensive". The fact that the offensive operation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine ended with almost nothing is already a well-known fact. The reasons for the failures of the counteroffensive were dealt with by the military observer of the newspaper.En" Mikhail Khodarenok.
For four months of almost continuous offensive combat operations, the Armed Forces of Ukraine managed to only marginally wedge themselves into the defense of Russian troops. Of course, such achievements have no operational and strategic significance. And it is quite obvious that the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine set far from these goals during the development of the offensive operation plan.
What was planned in the APU
The intentions of the Ukrainian command today can only be judged presumably. If the plan of the offensive operation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine ever becomes known, it will happen very, very soon.
It cannot be excluded that in the operational directives of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which were worked out before June 4 of this year, the objectives of the operation would sound something like this:
"the configuration of the line of combat contact, the staffing of the enemy's formations and units allows us to conclude that it is most expedient to strike:
- the main blow is in the direction of Tokmak-Melitopol, thereby dissecting the enemy forces, reaching the coast of the Sea of Azov and defeating the enemy in parts;
- to strike another blow in the Svatovo-Chervonopopovka strip in the general direction of Lugansk;
- another blow - in the Pervomaiske-Marinka lane in the general direction of Donetsk."
In the Luhansk direction, most likely, it was planned as the nearest task to seize the cities of Lisichansk and Severodonetsk, then to reach the approaches to Lugansk and take the city during a short assault.
In the Donetsk direction, it was supposed to seize the capital of Donbass and reach the administrative borders of the region.
In general, there is no doubt that the most decisive defeat of units and formations of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation was planned at the headquarters of the AFU. There is every reason to assume that at the end of a successful campaign, a victory parade was planned in Kiev (surely all procedures were developed in advance).
However, in practice, everything went wrong for the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the very beginning. And in the end, the APU got bogged down in protracted and bloody battles in the area of Rabocino-Verbovoye and did not even come close to the borders of the city limits of Bakhmut. In short, the results of the "counteroffensive" can be assessed as more than modest.
Why the operation failed
There is no doubt that last year, after the withdrawal of units and formations of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation from Kiev, Sumy, Chernihiv, the subsequent abandonment of Snake Island, the retreat from the Kherson bridgehead and the failure in September during the Kharkov operation, the military and political leadership in Kiev fell into some euphoria.
The enemy for the APU seemed less formidable than before. And the opportunity to "beat the enemy with one left" was then more than real for the leadership of Ukraine.
The mood of politicians and the military in Kiev was reflected in the statements of representatives of the Ukrainian expert community (Arestovich, Svitan, Zhdanov, Berezovets, etc.), which described the unconditional superiority of the Armed Forces of Ukraine over the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the low level of combat capability and combat readiness of Russian units and formations, the facts of "moral decomposition" of fighters and commanders.
Without any exaggeration, the level of Ukrainian bragging before the "counteroffensive" was simply off the scale. Perhaps no one had ever thought of shooting commercials before an offensive operation, but in Kiev this idea was implemented.
Probably, if the APU had launched large-scale offensive actions immediately after the successful Kharkiv operation for them, then it is quite possible that they would have achieved more significant results. As you know, in the course of armed struggle, time has completely different dimensions. As the ancients said, one minute decides the success of the battle, one hour - the success of the campaign, one day decides the fate of the empire.
However, the transition of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to large-scale offensive actions immediately after the Kharkov afront of Russian units and formations in September 2022 turned out to be simply impossible for a number of completely objective reasons.
Neither the forces, nor the means, nor the material resources available to the Ukrainian command, primarily ammunition, fuel and lubricants, and food, were enough for this.
For these reasons, the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not undertake any active military operations of an operational and strategic scale until the beginning of the summer of 2023, but were engaged in training troops and accumulating stocks of material resources. When the history of this armed conflict is written, surely the time lost by the Ukrainian leadership (and, most likely, by the collective West) will be considered one of the main reasons for the subsequent failures of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. As Alexander Suvorov said, "fortune has eyes on the back of her head, her hair is short, her flight is lightning fast: if you miss it once, you won't catch it."
Conversely, during this very long period, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, due to partial mobilization, completed and put in order their units and formations, prepared the necessary reserves, fully implemented fortification equipment of defense lanes and created an almost impregnable system of engineering barriers (PPE).
One of the biggest troubles and surprises for the APU is the PPE. As you know, it is a combination of obstacles and destruction, arranged in combination with natural obstacles and in close connection with the systems of defensive lines, fire damage and the planned maneuver of troops. The mine-explosive barriers of the Russian army (which form the basis of the PPE) affected the advancing units and units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the most paralyzing way.
The Ukrainian army did not have the forces and means to successfully break through the defense of the Russian army prepared in this way. To do this, it was necessary, at least, to win the battle for the ether (that is, to disorganize by means of electronic warfare the control system of the enemy's troops and weapons), to gain air supremacy and have overall fire superiority over the enemy.
In addition, as the newspaper previously wrote .Ru", the Ukrainian military violated almost all the classical conditions for counterattacking.
It is advantageous to inflict them when the enemy (that is, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in this case), as a result of stubborn defense and counterattacks, has already suffered significant losses and is disorganized: his battle formations are upset, the nearest reserves are spent, delayed or shackled. As you know, a premature counterattack, when the enemy is not yet weakened (and the units and formations of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are not weakened at all at this stage), cannot lead to a decisive result.
Important conditions for a successful counterattack ("counterattack" in the Ukrainian interpretation) are the secrecy of its preparation (and in Kiev, information about the upcoming counterattack sounded from every iron), the suddenness of the application (there was no surprise), reliable fire defeat of the enemy (and this was not carried out in full), as well as the implementation of measures to protection of advancing and deploying troops from enemy air strikes (just these strikes on the AFU are now carried out with enviable regularity).
And the most important condition is air superiority (at least for a while and at least in the counterstrike zone) and still it is desirable to have a general fire superiority over the enemy.
In short, in the course of their "counteroffensive", the Armed Forces of Ukraine decisively did everything contrary to the ABC of operational art. But the blame for this later turned out to be, according to politicians and the military in Kiev, NATO.
What's next?
A quite natural question arises - what actions will the APU take after the final exhaustion of its offensive capabilities (and this moment, it seems, is not far off). Earlier, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov stated that "we will not limit ourselves to time, we will fight as long as it takes."
To this statement, the Ukrainian politician forgot to add one important circumstance: in the conduct of the armed struggle, Ukraine today is very, very dependent on Western military assistance. The collective West today contains not only the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but also almost the entire Ukrainian state. In fact, Ukraine is waging a war at someone else's expense and besides, it is not even going to pay off its debts in the future.
It must be said bluntly that it is not possible to move the AFU to the next offensive operation without an operational pause, designed to compensate for losses in personnel, weapons and military equipment, accumulation of necessary stocks of material resources.
A quite reasonable question arises: how much and what is required to solve such operational and strategic tasks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine? And it is necessary very much. To reach the borders of 1991, Ukraine must, at a minimum, inflict a crushing defeat on the Russian army.
To do this, Kiev will need armed forces comparable in size and combat capabilities with the armies of Great Britain, Germany and France, and it would not be a big exaggeration to say taken together.
After all, Ukraine's allies in this case need to practically recreate the air force, army and military transport aviation of this country, as well as the radar reconnaissance and anti-aircraft missile cover system. There are practically no such precedents in military history.
Is the collective West ready to provide military assistance to Ukraine in this volume? Recall that the F-16 fighter of the latest modification costs about $ 150 million, one tank - $ 6-8 million. So far, there is no willingness on the part of Ukraine's allies to pay precisely for such accounts. And more and more often in the West they are asking the question, how hypothetically can a military victory of Ukraine over Russia look like and is it possible in principle?
In other words, a military solution to this problem seems far from obvious even to specialists today. And there are no specific statements in this regard from representatives of the Western expert community yet. In any case, no one has voiced anything like this yet. No one has yet outlined in detail the post-war structure of the world after the end of hostilities.
So, most likely, after the exhaustion of the combat and operational capabilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in this "counteroffensive" and with the onset of the autumn thaw on the fronts, there will be an operational pause. But it is unlikely that the Russian army will indifferently observe the next military preparations on the part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for the newspaper.Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976), the Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy Commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia (1998).
Columnist of "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Military-Industrial Courier" (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok
