The coming battle should aim to persuade Moscow of the futility of its aggression and attempted land grabs LAWRENCE FREEDMANAdd to myFT © Rory Griffiths/FT/Getty Images It is now battered Ukraine’s turn for an offensive on twitter (opens in a new window) It is now battered Ukraine’s turn for an offensive on facebook (opens in a new window) It is now battered Ukraine’s turn for an offensive on linkedin (opens in a new window) Save current progress 0% Lawrence Freedman MAY 5 2023 325 Print this page Receive free War in Ukraine updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest War in Ukraine news every morning. The writer is author of ‘Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine’ After more than 14 months of gruelling combat, Vladimir Putin has failed to achieve any of his war aims.
His original objective was to subjugate all of Ukraine. That aspiration lasted a few days, although it has never quite gone away. His current position is that peace can be discussed as soon as Ukraine acknowledges that the four oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — illegally annexed last year, like Crimea in 2014 — are a permanent part of Russia. Putin’s difficulty is that much of this claimed land is out of reach of Russian forces. Not long after the invasion the Russians were in occupation of some 27 per cent of Ukrainian territory. This is now down to 18 per cent. He hoped, with Russia’s recent offensive, to remedy that situation — at least by taking Luhansk and Donetsk, together known as the Donbas. But after months of effort, relying on artillery barrages and infantry assaults, they have suffered huge casualties (100,000, including 20,000 killed, since December, according to the Pentagon) while making few advances.
Bakhmut has become the symbol of this struggle. After the loss of the adjacent town of Soledar in January, it was also expected to fall. Yet Ukrainian units have clung on and kept their supply lines open. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the boss of the Wagner mercenaries that have been doing the bulk of the fighting, has complained bitterly that the defence ministry has denied his men sufficient ammunition and now threatens to abandon Bakhmut next week. Elsewhere, Russian commanders are now torn about whether to try to take ground or consolidate their current positions in anticipation of the coming Ukrainian offensive. Russia has also failed in its systematic campaign to take out Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, particularly its electricity supplies, using drones and missiles — although deadly attacks on Ukrainian cities continue.
Shelling caused the death of 23 civilians in Kherson on Wednesday. This has strengthened rather than weakened Kyiv’s determination to continue the fight. Frustrated by Ukrainian resilience, Russia must now cope with significant numbers of its facilities, notably oil depots, being struck far behind the front lines by long-range drones. A drone attack against the Kremlin this week led the Russian leadership into such paroxysms of manufactured fury that many commentators surmised this was a “false flag” attack designed to create a pretext for retaliatory action.
Yet Russia has been routinely striking Ukrainian cities without bothering with excuses, and it is hard to see why the leadership would want to expose such an embarrassing vulnerability. This clearly was not a US-inspired attempt to assassinate Putin, as Russian propagandists claim. Perhaps it was a Ukrainian provocation. The Russian mood will not have been helped by the fact that 18 out of the 24 Iranian drones sent to punish Ukraine for this “outrage” were shot down.
Absorbing the Russian offensive has not been easy for Ukraine. Casualties have been heavy and at times there have been questions about whether it would have made more sense to withdraw. Kyiv’s generals, however, feel these attritional battles have served their purpose, preventing Russia from taking much more territory while inflicting heavy losses. Now it is their turn. Preparatory work has been under way for some time, knocking out command posts, artillery pieces, ammunition dumps and troop concentrations.
Fresh brigades equipped with modern western kit are almost ready to move. But the enemy has prepared elaborate defences to block the most likely areas of Ukrainian advance and enjoys air superiority. There have been publicised concerns about gaps in Ukrainian air defences and insufficient ammunition. Leaked (but now dated) assessments doubted whether Kyiv could make any real progress.
Nonetheless, the US government insists it is now more optimistic. Should the Ukrainian offensive follow the Russian one into failure, then the prospect will be of a continuing stalemate and another harsh winter of fighting and energy shortages. International calls for a ceasefire, preferably accompanied by a full peace settlement, will grow louder. The Ukrainians, however, are not playing for a draw. This is their best chance of a breakthrough, and their ambition is to reach the approaches to Crimea. However much land is taken, the main objective must be to convince the Russian elite of the futility of this war and the fragility of its occupation. The war began with a decision in the Kremlin and that is where a decision must be taken to end it.
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