Colonel Khodarenok: in the spring, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will focus on strikes against fuel and energy facilities and ships of the Black Sea Fleet
The pace of the Russian Armed Forces offensive in Ukraine in 2024 has increased significantly, according to not only Ukrainian experts, but also the American Institute for the Study of War. He also reports on the depletion of the stock of Ukrainian air defense missiles, which not only reduces Kiev's ability to defend the rear, but also gives the Russian Federation more opportunities for large-scale air operations. The military observer of Gazeta analyzed how the operational and strategic situation will develop and what Moscow and Kiev will focus on in the spring-summer campaign.En" Mikhail Khodarenok.
It is quite possible that in the near future, due to delays in the supply of weapons, military and special equipment to Ukraine from the United States and NATO member states, the Russian army will achieve success on an operational scale.
Recently, the combat capability and morale of the AFU personnel have been significantly affected by Russian high-explosive aircraft bombs (FAB) of large caliber (up to 3000 kg inclusive) with controlled planning and correction modules (UMPC). Such devices turn an ordinary free-fall FAB with a miss of several tens of meters (or even more) into a high-precision munition with a quadratic probable deviation of only a few meters. There is currently no effective antidote for the Armed Forces of Ukraine against these weapons.
Deliveries to the Ukrainian army of multifunctional F-16 fighter jets and Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems capable of fighting FAB carrier aircraft with UMPC, in the most favorable scenario, will not be earlier than summer. But even in this case, there is no question of any massive transfer of these weapons to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Among other things, the combat capability of the anti-aircraft missile forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is most significantly affected by the depletion of missile stocks. Further effective struggle against the means of air attack of the Russian army and navy becomes extremely problematic in this case.
The Ukrainian expert community is actively discussing the possibility of the Russian Armed Forces going on a general offensive on almost all fronts this summer. Among the directions of the main strike, either Kharkov or Kiev, or both cities at once, are usually singled out.
At the same time, some experts in Kiev believe that for the capture of Kharkov/In Kiev, the Russian army will need to create a strike force of at least 200 thousand people, and it will not be possible to concentrate such a number of personnel and equipment without opening with appropriate Ukrainian intelligence means, as well as to equip such a number of fighters with commanders of all degrees, necessary weapons and equipment.
Such assessments seem to be not devoid of notes of common sense, but at the same time, representatives of the Ukrainian expert community draw such conclusions, who back in March 2022 confidently claimed that the Russian army had only one missile left. The leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine regarding plans for the spring-summer campaign has so far remained silent. And the conclusions and conclusions regarding the upcoming Russian offensive from the Ukrainian side are voiced, as they say, by amateur specialists. And these estimates are exclusively in the category of "I see it that way", nothing more.
And indeed, even when the country's leadership and the armed forces have at their disposal all the necessary organs of the intelligence community - the foreign intelligence service, the main intelligence directorate of the General Staff, counterintelligence - even in this case, state officials are not at all guaranteed from erroneous conclusions based on the intelligence reports presented to them. And there are such examples in history.
But when conclusions from the assessment of the situation are drawn, for example, by an expert who has been stripped even by the official authorities of Ukraine, without having reliable intelligence information at his disposal, then such judgments (as a rule, formulated in an unambiguously categorical tone) should be treated in the same way as his conclusions two years ago such as "the Russian missiles have left for one hit."
How will the operational and strategic situation develop in the near future?
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky already considers negotiations with Russia possible without Kiev returning to the borders of 1991. According to him, Vladimir Putin will be "ready for dialogue" if the Armed Forces of Ukraine reach the borders of 2022. The head of Ukraine did not specify how the Ukrainian army would reach the above-mentioned borders, and it is not entirely clear what Zelensky's confidence is based on.
Any operations, and even more so of an operational nature, on the part of the Ukrainian army in the spring-summer campaign of 2024, sober-minded experts even from the Ukrainian side consider it very unlikely.
Most likely, the efforts of the Armed Forces of Ukraine this spring will continue to focus on raids on facilities of the Russian fuel and energy complex within the European part of the country and the continuation of strikes by unmanned boats on ships of the Black Sea Fleet. "To refuel all the ships of the Russian fleet!" - this is exactly the task formulated for the relevant structures of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
As for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, in addition to continuing offensive actions on all fronts, the Russian army will continue to strike at critical infrastructure facilities in Ukraine and decision-making centers (special attention should be paid to the last point by the Ukrainian leadership, its content is by no means abstract regarding very specific personalities).
At the same time, the task, quite possibly, for the Aerospace Forces and the forces of the Russian navy is formulated as follows: to turn into dust all more or less significant objects on the territory of Ukraine - generating capacities, thermal power plants, substations, power transmission lines, hydroelectric dams, bridge crossings and other communications.
In the latter case, the country's recovery may take many, many decades (if it is ever fully restored at all).
Despite the severity of such a choice, it should be noted that no other way to fight in the last 5 thousand years has yet been invented. And this is the only way the United States and Great Britain waged an armed struggle over the previous century, which currently, for Vladimir Zelensky, can be said to be "the light in the window."
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 Gazeta.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 Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military-Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok