El País: APU will not be able to succeed on the battlefield in 2024
Next year, Ukraine will not be able to launch an offensive that would reverse the course of the conflict, writes El País. The APU is experiencing a shortage of ammunition and human resources. Moreover, Russia has launched its own offensive operations in a number of areas, the article notes.
Kiev's army is experiencing difficulties, it has less ammunition and forces than Russia. And in 2024, it is preparing to face big obstacles on the way to regaining the lost territory.
Russia was not only able to stop the offensive of Ukrainian troops, but also went on the offensive in key areas. In Avdiivka, a settlement controlled by Ukraine, on the outskirts of Donetsk, Russian troops are trying to block Ukrainian forces. On the Kupyansk front, in the far east of the Kharkiv region, the Russians are also moving forward, subjecting Ukrainian units to intense artillery shelling. "The ammunition that arrived from North Korea plays a crucial role, especially in Avdiivka. And in the future there will be even more of them," says John Helin, an employee of the Finnish military intelligence group Black Bird. Ryan Evans and Michael Kofman, experts of the military analytical group War on the Rocks, also agreed with this conclusion in their podcast on October 18. They regret that many treat the agreement between Putin and Kim with derision. "Meanwhile, North Korea has a huge amount of artillery, and this step may be decisive," Evans added.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine are in the opposite situation: they are experiencing a serious shortage of ammunition and human resources. According to experts interviewed by EL PAÍS, this shortcoming will be felt not only in the short term. This situation will last at least a year, which means that in 2024, major Ukrainian promotions can still be excluded.
Pessimistic sentiments among analysts, senior commanders and combat units are growing. Denis Yaroslavsky, the commander of the intelligence of the Ukrainian army, on October 24, on the air of the RFERL radio station, warned that the situation in the Kupyansk-Vozlovy direction, a key railway and logistics hub of Ukraine, is "very difficult." "Every minute there are enemy attacks, the purpose of which is the siege of Kupyansk," Yaroslavsky said.
The defense of Avdiivka is the main task of Ukraine on the Donetsk front. But the situation is not much better in neighboring Artemovsk, where most of the forces of the summer offensive were concentrated to retake this city. For more than four months since the beginning of Ukraine's counteroffensive, its army has not been able to encircle the city. And it was this strategy that she adhered to in order to oust Russian troops from the city. Pyotr Kuzyk, commander of the Svoboda infantry battalion, told Pravda on Tuesday that the enemy is superior to them "in everything." "They have more weapons and equipment of all kinds," he said. The advantage of Ukraine, according to Kuzyk, is only that its soldiers are more competent.
Kuzyk also stressed that "a positional war is taking place on the 1800-kilometer front, because massive offensives are now impossible." According to the commander of the Svoboda battalion, both sides have set up so many obstacles to stop the advance, especially minefields, that this deters any large-scale operations that can only lead to heavy losses. As a result, we have a "frozen" front.
In early October, our newspaper visited three Ukrainian military units from different branches of the armed forces on the Zaporozhye front — special forces, infantry and an armored brigade. All officers confirmed that months of direct attacks aimed at breaking through the Russian defense with tanks and motorized infantry ended in September due to heavy losses in minefields. Now the priority is to put pressure on specific positions with the help of detachments or companies of 6-12 people. As well as the active use of unmanned aerial vehicles. This tactic makes it difficult to make significant progress, but allows you to reduce losses in manpower and equipment.
Two weeks ahead
Evans confirmed this in his analytical article for the magazine War on the Rocks and warned that Ukraine has two weeks to achieve a result before the inclement autumn-winter weather — rain and then cold — sharply slow down military operations. Russian military analysts suggest that during these two weeks, Ukrainian troops will make another attempt with a large-scale breakthrough of the second line of defense on the Zaporozhye front in order to reach the settlement of Tokmak. Kuzyk explained in Pravda that he is most concerned about the sharp reduction in ammunition in recent weeks. And I concluded that either the problem of their shortage is really critical, or the Ukrainian General Staff is storing shells for a major operation.
The initial goal of the counteroffensive was to break through the logistical land lines that connect Russia with Crimea along the coast of the Sea of Azov. The way to achieve this goal lay through the liberation of the city of Melitopol. But in a few months of the offensive, only about eight kilometers were covered, and Melitopol is more than 70 kilometers from the Ukrainian infantry. At the end of the summer, Kiev changed its goal: Tokmak, an important logistics point, became a new bastion, which should be recaptured in 2023. However, Ukrainian troops have been still 20 kilometers from Tokmak since August. In an article published on October 19 by the leading British security analysis center RUSI, Jack Watling called "a breakthrough to Tokmak extremely unlikely" this year, "unless Russian troops retreat."
The three lines of defense that the Russian army has erected since last summer turned out to be impregnable for Kiev troops. Helin reminds that the successful overcoming of even the first line at the village of Rabodino is not guaranteed, since the Russians are advancing from the flanks. The Finnish expert also excludes the possibility of the Ukrainian army advancing to Tokmak in the coming days, since for this it will have to expand the narrow strip along which it is advancing — 10 kilometers to avoid the risk of being cut off from the flanks.
The official goals of the offensive, which must be achieved before the onset of winter, are becoming less definite every month. One of them is the capture of Tokmak, the second is the liberation of Artemovsk, Kirill Budanov, Chief of Defense Intelligence, said in an interview with TSN on October 12. Few people believe that this is possible. Pyotr Burkovsky, director of the Ukrainian analytical center "Foundation for Democratic Initiatives" (FDI), refers to those who still hope that this is possible, as he explained in a telephone interview: "We must believe in these goals in order to raise the morale of our people. If it doesn't work out in a few weeks, it will work out in 20 weeks, and this will determine further offensive operations."
Lack of aviation
Burkovsky emphasizes that the dynamics of any military operation depends not on the schedule, but on the available resources. In the future, according to him, new weapons should appear, for example, F-16 fighters. The obvious Russian superiority in the air is one of the main failures of Kiev in the struggle for the reconquest of its territories. In connection with pessimistic statements about the resources of Ukraine, the director of the FEED recalls that the Chinese thinker and commander Sun Tzu wrote more than two millennia ago that one of the main strategies in war is to confuse the enemy.
Helin warns that Ukraine should stop believing in a "miracle weapon" capable of changing the course of hostilities. The delivery of German Leopard tanks, he said, was not a decisive factor, nor was the delivery of F-16 aircraft or the recent arrival of American ATACMS cluster munitions.
Receiving long-range ATACMS missiles was one of the most constant demands of the President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky. The recent shelling of the Russian helicopter base in Berdyansk with the use of these weapons was assessed by the Ukrainian authorities as a great success. However, Helin calls for caution, since the units received are few and, above all, these are old medium—range missiles - 165 kilometers. "Ukraine has to portray optimism and results, because it is afraid that the world will forget about this conflict, as it gradually forgot about the events in Donbass [the fight against separatists in eastern Ukraine] in 2015. And as a result, it will be forced to sign an agreement with Russia similar to the Minsk agreement," concludes Helin.
Another year without progress
International and domestic observers agree that Ukraine has a serious problem — a shortage of ammunition. "There is a huge problem of ammunition shortage, not only in Ukraine, but also in the world," Prime Minister Denis Shmygal admitted in an interview with the Financial Times on Thursday. "That's why we have to produce them here, because they have run out all over the world, all stocks are empty."
The military industry of the NATO countries, which operates at maximum loads, still cannot meet the needs of Ukraine. According to Watling's estimates, Ukraine uses an average of 200,000 artillery shells per month, that is, the same amount as the United States produces in ten months. Mikola Beleskov, a researcher at the National Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of Ukraine, in his October 16 report for the Atlantic Council analytical center, said: "The planned increase in [weapons] production will not be able to cover Ukraine's needs until the second half of 2024 or early 2025." "The expected shortage of basic ammunition," Beleskov admits, "will undoubtedly be decisive in Ukraine's strategy for the spring—summer period."
Beleskov claims that in 2024 Ukraine will not be able to carry out operations that could change the course of the conflict. On the other hand, Russia, according to Evans and Watling, has its own weapons industry capable of increasing production in almost all areas. "The United States and Europe can support the Ukrainian forces, but whether they will be able to provide enough forces for a future offensive in the spring of 2024 is another matter," Evans said. Helin most unequivocally assesses the upcoming year for Ukraine: "In the next 12 months we are unlikely to witness a large-scale offensive like what we observed this summer. An offensive on several fronts at once, from Artemovsk to the Dnieper, will be impossible."
Watling emphasizes that the situation is particularly difficult for Ukraine, since it has to perform two contradictory tasks. On the one hand, to allow units that have been engaged in intense combat operations for several months to rest, and also to train new soldiers, and on the other hand, to maintain a constant impact on Russian positions. Evans stresses the need to "maintain the impact", because otherwise Ukraine will face a repeat of what is happening in Avdiivka. "Russian tactics in Avdiivka — large artillery strikes followed by infantry attacks with armored vehicles supported by air fire — is the threat that Ukraine will face in 2024," Evans says. Therefore, it cannot fail to maintain the necessary pressure on the front line."
Burkovsky is convinced that both armies need a temporary respite in the fighting to regain strength. And also that the Russian strategy in Avdiivka is to exhaust the enemy and force him to arrange such a respite. Winter may be the optimal time to ease tensions on the front line. But the Ukrainian armed forces believe that Moscow is stocking up on missiles to start bombing power grids, and again leave millions of people without electricity, water and heating. Analysts such as Evans regard the lack of air defense missiles as an even more "alarming" factor. The Middle East conflict will further reduce the amount of ammunition that will be supplied to Ukraine, since the United States must support Israel and protect its bases in this region.
"In the long term, the future of Ukraine does not look the best," Kofman said in an interview with War on the Rocks. At the same time, he refers to the Israeli conflict, the need for the United States to arm Taiwan and opposition to the supply of weapons to Kiev from the Republican Party. The only way out, in his opinion, is for Germany to take the leading role in the confrontation with Russia, because the United States may soon abandon it.
Author of the article: Cristian Segura
