Reality of war deflates hyped-up campaign; Russia minefields obstructing hopes

It was billed as the military blockbuster of the summer, a game-changer in what would be Ukraine’s decisive campaign to drive back the Russian invaders.

Instead, Kyiv’s widely anticipated counteroffensive has been, at best, a slow-moving slog with little discernible progress.

At worst, critics say, it’s shaping up to be an undeniable failure that proves once and for all that neither Ukraine nor Russia is capable of a clear-cut, definitive win on the battlefield. The Biden administration, they say, should push Ukraine toward the negotiating table rather than watch as more money and manpower are expended on a military campaign that ultimately cannot achieve its prime objectives.

Other analysts and top officials in Kyiv argue that the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which began in early June, has been a victim of its own high expectations. Russian military failures early in the war and the recent mutiny spearheaded by Wagner Group mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin fueled the belief that Moscow’s army was on the verge of collapse and would split apart once Kyiv’s offensive began in earnest.

The reality has proved to be much different.

Despite internal political drama, a poor command-and-control structure and low morale in the ranks, Russia has built an elaborate series of minefields and other defenses to blunt Ukraine’s advance in the eastern part of the country. Defense is typically easier to manage in war than offense, and for all its successes last year, Ukraine went into the fight with some distinct handicaps.

The hope was that an energized and better-trained Ukrainian attacking force could cut Russian occupying forces into two in the south and east, but the vanguard remains dozens of miles from its objective.

Any disappointment with Ukraine’s progress stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation, said Jim Townsend, deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy during the Obama administration.

“They have no air cover. The minefields are really treacherous. They don’t have all the equipment we have. People cannot expect a U.S.-style offensive like Desert Storm cutting right through Saddam’s defenses,” he said in an interview. “They’re not equipped for that, and we haven’t equipped them for it. We can’t sit back and chide them for that.

“A lot of other allies would be just as stuck as they are dealing with the minefields,” Mr. Townsend said. “I’m hoping they’re close to finding an area where they can break through. If they can find an area to break through, then a lot of the tanks and things that we’ve been giving them will come into play. But they have to find that place.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was largely silent as Ukrainian forces racked up victories in the early part of the war, sounds increasingly confident that Kyiv’s attacks are falling short.

“It is obvious today that the Kyiv regime’s Western handlers are clearly disappointed over the results of the so-called counteroffensive loudly trumpeted by the current Ukrainian authorities in the previous months,” Mr. Putin told his security council on Friday.

He mocked the prowess of Western arms supplied to support the Ukrainian advance. “There are no results, at least not yet,” he said.

Even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has acknowledged what is increasingly obvious to outside observers: that the counteroffensive hasn’t lived up to the hype. He made a familiar pitch for more military and logistical aid from the West. In an interview with CNN that aired Sunday, Mr. Zelenskyy blamed the slow start on a lack of munitions and lengthy training missions far from the battlefield.

“We did have plans to start it in spring. But we didn’t because, frankly, we had not enough munitions and armaments and not enough brigades properly trained in these weapons, still, more, that the training missions were held outside Ukraine,” Mr. Zelenskyy said.

‘Real war’

The counteroffensive began after months of a virtual stalemate on the ground. Other than fierce fighting in and around Bakhmut, the front lines were frozen in place for most of the year. Russia controlled parts of the disputed Donbas region but could not push deeper into Ukraine.

The Ukrainian counteroffensive has made incremental gains in the past six weeks. An analysis last week by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Ukraine has picked up some ground in Andriivka, southwest of Bakhmut, and northwest of Bakhmut in Orikhovo-Vasylivka, where some Russian forces were forced to retreat.

On most other fronts, incremental gains have been minor at best. Ukraine’s entire operation is moving much slower than expected, especially given the limitations of Russian forces.

U.S. military officials say the disconnect between expectation and reality boils down to the nature of war, in which human beings routinely put themselves in harm’s way for their cause. Speaking to reporters last week, Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the advance has not kept pace with theoretical war game exercises.

“Why? Because that’s the difference between war on paper and real war,” Gen. Milley said. “These are real people in real machines that are out there really clearing minefields and they’re really dying. So when that happens, units tend to slow down, and that’s rightly so, in order to survive” on the battlefield.

“It is far from a failure in my view,” Gen. Milley said of the counteroffensive. “I think it’s way too early to make that kind of call. I think there’s a lot of fighting left to go.”

With a smaller army and population, Ukraine can’t sustain the levels of casualties that Russia has endured, commanders say. Some elite Ukrainian units specifically trained for the attack have not seen any action six weeks into the offensive.

Gen. Milley rejected the notion that the U.S. isn’t giving Ukraine all it needs. Although Kyiv has a long wish list that includes F-16 fighter jets and other significant assets, Gen. Milley said, the U.S. and its NATO allies are focused on helping Ukraine clear the vast minefields that Russian forces built.

“The problem to solve is the minefields, not the air piece, right this minute,” Gen. Milley said.

The web of Russian land mines is vast. By some estimates, one-third of Ukrainian land is littered with mines, making any rapid ground offensive virtually impossible.

Mr. Zelenskyy said the mine problem has worsened with Ukraine’s slow pace of attack.

“It provided Russia with time to mine all our lands and build several lines of defense. And, definitely, they had even more time than they needed,” he told CNN. “Because of that, a slower pace of our counteroffensive actions. We didn’t want to lose our people, our personnel. And our servicemen didn’t want to lose equipment because of that.”

End of the road?

Even if Ukrainian troops neutralize the network of minefields and other defenses, they might not be equipped to conduct a successful, multipronged assault on the Russian lines. By all accounts, such an offensive is Ukraine’s most complex, difficult undertaking of the war. It’s also the most costly from an equipment perspective and in terms of the human lives sure to be lost.

Some analysts see a bitter irony: that Kyiv will find itself in a position familiar to Moscow. Over the past century, Russia has repeatedly been forced to send waves of men to near-certain death in hopes that the scale of attrition would eventually tip in its favor.

Even then, Mr. Zelenskyy’s troops face an uphill battle, said retired Army Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, a senior fellow at the think tank Defense Priorities, which advocates for a more restrained U.S. military role abroad.

“The military geography of this entire region of Ukraine is characterized by open, flat terrain, interspersed with thin forest strips. Because Russia owns the skies and has considerable drone capacity, any time the Ukrainian soldiers move in the open, they are immediately subjected to artillery or mortar fire. If any armored vehicles move in the open, they are likewise quickly destroyed,” Col. Davis wrote in an analysis posted on the website of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

“It’s not that Zelenskyy’s forces are ‘going slowly’ forward, it’s that they aren’t attaining any of their initial tactical objectives on the way to the Azov coast and it’s precisely because the combat fundamentals necessary to win are largely — and in some cases entirely — absent,” he wrote. “They flatly don’t have the human resources or physical infrastructure necessary to succeed.”

Col. Davis and other observers say it’s time for Mr. Zelenskyy to consider serious peace talks with the Kremlin. Since the start of the war in February 2022, the Biden administration has maintained that it wants Ukraine in the strongest possible position when negotiations begin and only Kyiv could say when the time is right. With its counteroffensive seemingly stalled, that time may have arrived.

The U.S. political calendar adds even more urgency. Several Republican presidential candidates have indicated that they oppose unlimited funds and war materials for Ukraine. That sentiment is growing in Washington with troubling signs that America’s own weapons stockpiles are dwindling.

“I think the Ukrainian high command knows all of that because I think we’ve told them that,” Mr. Townsend said. “But there’s not much they can do about it. They’re not going to sacrifice their guys in the minefields to meet our political calendar.”