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12 August 2024

Can Ukraine Get Back on the Offensive?

Mick Ryan

Toward the end of 2023, the Russian military was presented with an opportunity to truly transform the war in Ukraine. Kyiv’s ground forces had run out of steam in their southern counteroffensive. Ukraine had blown through large quantities of munitions and air defense interceptors and was struggling to resupply its lines. At the same time, a controversial bill to expand mobilization stalled in Ukraine’s parliament, as the country’s manpower shortages became acute. It only passed parliament in April after months of debate, coming into force in May. And in the United States, support for Ukraine was fracturing along party lines, holding up a $61 billion aid package in Congress.

But over the past six months, Russia has generally failed to capitalize on this convergence of openings. It has launched air and missile attacks against Ukraine’s power grid—dramatically reducing the country’s capacity to generate electricity—and it has terrorized civilians. Yet Russian ground forces have managed to gain only small bits of land. All in all, the amount of territory seized by Russia since January 2024 adds up to around 360 square miles, an area roughly two-thirds the size of New York City. It is hard to describe these gains as a success when they came at the cost of more than 180,000 Russian casualties, according to Western intelligence estimates.

Moscow’s forces are not done with their offensive. They keep attacking across multiple fronts on the ground and bombing Ukrainian infrastructure from the air. But even the largest and most capable military organizations cannot sustain offensives forever, and after losing so many troops, Russia’s window of opportunity may soon close. The soldiers who have died in combat were disproportionately Russia’s best. Its equipment reserves are being slowly run down. Moscow will eventually have no choice but to pause its offensive and regroup.

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