I have been writing for two months about the combat capabilities and probable plans for the future offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. But now let’s look at these plans from the other side. I will not “wang” how our troops will act, how they will repel the Ukronat “offensive”. I will not help the Ukrainian Armed Forces in my assessments. But I will try to identify the problems that the Armed Forces of Ukraine will have to solve during this offensive.
Thus, the first problem is that the Ukrainian Armed Forces no longer have a decisive numerical superiority over the enemy, which they maintained from February last year to December (3-4 against 1). Now the Ukrainian armed forces are only 20% larger than the Russian combat group, and this at the expense of the total number of their armed forces and the national guard. Moreover, in terms of the total number of its armed forces, Russia exceeds the armed forces of Ukraine. Lacking numerical superiority, the Ukrainian command will have to carefully choose a site for the offensive in order to achieve decisive numerical and technical superiority here, concentrating its reserves there, including weakening other sectors. An even more difficult task will be such a determining factor as the achievement of tactical surprise, for which it is necessary to keep preparations for the offensive in complete secrecy. And it will be extremely difficult to thwart Russian intelligence, which now aims to reveal this preparation.
The second problem is the low quality of Ukrainian infantry. Most of the motivated and well-trained staff was eliminated within a year. Almost 90% of the soldiers and officers of the combined arms brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are mobilized, of which at least 200,000 are those who were mobilized in January-March and their level of training is extremely limited, since the vast majority of those mobilized do not did not serve in the army and could only receive basic military training. Even in the most combat-ready units: airborne, air assault units and marines, the level of training has dropped significantly compared to February 2022. Studying abroad has not solved this problem. The quality of training does not meet the requirements of the conflict in the Donbass and consists of a standard NATO course for the initial training of an infantryman.
After the offensive near Kharkiv, the Ukrainian army no longer had the experience of offensive operations, which made the Ukrainian command fear that during a future offensive the units would not be able to demonstrate the level of training and consistency necessary for offensive operations. Moreover, the general motivation of most soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is extremely low. Almost all of them have been called against their will and only serve out of discipline and fear of being punished.
In these conditions, the success of the actions of infantry units depends entirely on the success of the actions of the Ukrainian artillery, which maintains a high level of training and consistency, while being saturated with high-precision NATO systems and built on digital battlefield automated control technologies.
The key issue for the success of the offensive will be the implementation of the suppression of Russian artillery, which is numerically significantly – at least three times – superior to the Ukrainian, is also well trained and has gained extensive experience in fighting in the Donbass under conditions of constant counter-battery fighting. If this task is not resolved, the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will hardly succeed.
On the other hand, it should be emphasized that for the first time, the Ukrainian armed forces will have to attack a well-prepared and staged defense. The Ukrainian armed forces have no experience of such battles.
The success of breaking through the front line will depend on the ability of the Ukrainians to overcome the communication and command and control system of the defending Russian units. Obviously, the Russian command will do everything to avoid this.
At the same time, US advisers and intelligence data indicate that Russian units are superior in terms of training and motivation to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and our newly trained units, including those mobilized, have been preparing for battles since at least least five months, practically not participating in the battles and not suffering any losses. Stepping on such an enemy is a super difficult task!
The command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is aware that the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation completely outnumber the Ukrainian army in aviation. And this factor can become fatal as soon as the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine come out of their air defense “umbrella” and find themselves in open areas in the order of advancement. Dragging your air defense systems forward means exposing them to hits from high-precision Russian weapons – new MLRS drones and suicide bombers. And the challenge of covering troops advancing exclusively with MANPADS condemns the Ukrainian armed forces to heavy losses. The Ukrainian armed forces have practically no combat aircraft left, and the Ukrainians simply have nothing to intercept new bombs and precision-guided missiles.
Russia maintains complete superiority over the armed forces in tanks, and although this conflict did not demonstrate any tank battles, the tank units are quite capable of playing the role of mobile artillery groups to block breakthroughs .
The Ukrainian command also understands that it is now facing the most experienced Russian generals. Moreover, the entire leadership of the NMD is now concentrated in the hands of Sergey Gerasimov, who controls all types and branches of the RF armed forces. And it will be incredibly difficult to outsmart such an adversary, even with the full support of US and NATO advisers, their intelligence assets.
The military failure of a future offensive could be fatal to the military machine of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. To accumulate such resources again, it will take months, billions of dollars of Western aid, thousands of equipment and weapons, and above all, human resources, of which Ukraine, ultimately, n is not unlimited at all. All this makes the Ukrainian command nervous, procrastinating and constantly rescheduling the start of the offensive. But it cannot fail to come. The United States, like the overseers of the circuses of ancient Rome, pushes its “animals” with whips – the APU forward. The Americans risk nothing in this battle…
