Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, on a monitor during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York on Sept. 21, 2022. (Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg)
Has Ukraine's long-awaited spring counteroffensive finally begun? Even now, as the calendar ticks firmly into summer, the answer still very much depends on whom you ask. Russian officials say yes, it has — a view shared by some U.S. officials, too. But the Ukrainians have directly rejected these claims. "When we start the counteroffensive, everyone will know about it, they will see it," Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, told Reuters on Wednesday.
Ultimately, the wins of last year's counteroffensives were easy to spot. After Ukraine stealthily maneuvered its forces to the Kharkiv region in September, they were able to displace invading Russian forces who had been expecting the counteroffensive to begin hundreds of miles south in the Kherson region. The Russians were flummoxed. In the resulting strategic disarray, Moscow's forces were soon also forced to retreat in the south, with Ukraine ultimately liberating the city of Kherson and the surrounding area in November.
However, the landscape of the war has fundamentally changed since last year. There are several reasons that this year's efforts may not prove to be an easy repeat of 2022's counteroffensives for Ukraine — for better or worse.
1. The battle map has been redrawn. Last year, Ukraine was able to retake significant areas of land in the Kherson region, but only on the west bank of the Dnieper. This mighty, sprawling river serves as a dividing line between Ukrainian forces and Russian occupiers, who have destroyed bridges that could be used to cross it. Crossing the Dnieper is possible — small groups of Ukrainian soldiers have already done just that — but it presents a significant tactical problem.
That problem may have been made more severe this week by the collapse of the Russian-controlled Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power plant, which resulted in enormous flooding, with thousands of homes caught in rising waters. The flooding has already reshaped the battlefield, cutting off one of the few remaining routes across the river.
In the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region, meanwhile, the relatively flat expanses of mostly agricultural land make for a far riper target. Many expect the counteroffensive to take place in this direction as it could sever the "land bridge" to Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula occupied by Russia since 2014. But Russia knows this too and has spent more than six months heavily fortifying the area with trenches, minefields and antitank obstacles. Getting through those lines will take time, effort and equipment — potentially allowing Russian reserves to regroup and counterstrike before Ukraine's forces can break through.
2. New weapons are on the battlefield. The United States has provided significant amounts of new weapons to Ukrainian forces since last November, including the Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, the M1A2 Abrams battle tank and Patriot air defense missile systems. Other allies have filled in the gap, with European allies providing Leopard 2 battle tanks and Britain supplying the Storm Shadow long-range missiles. (The United States also recently gave approval for the supply of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, though like the Abrams tanks, it is likely to be many months before they are used).
Many of these weapons will mark a change for Ukraine, which at the start of the conflict was relying on older machines largely of Soviet-era design. The Bradleys, for example, are generally faster and have better armor than the vehicles they are supplanting, while the addition of long-range missiles like the Storm Shadow could force Russia to move its reserves further from Ukrainian-controlled territory, making them slower to respond.
Just as important, however, are the troops themselves. Units like the newly created 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade are not only armed with Western weapons but trained in Western military tactics, too. They have been trained in offensive maneuvers — remarkably, unusual in Ukraine's military until the invasion — as well as combined-arms warfare, which calls on different types of weapons and units to work together to maximize their impact.
3. Morale could prove to be a big issue for both sides. Russia's military has been beset with problems since the war began — one reason for the hasty retreats seen last year. Russia's planned winter offensive earlier this year never took off, while whatever gains there have been are at best pyrrhic victories. Bakhmut, for example, was taken at the massive cost of both the strategically unimportant city itself and thousands of Russians — many convicts recruited as mercenaries — who died there. Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the Wagner mercenary chief who placed himself at the center of that battle, is now in a war of words with Russia's military, further evidence of deep and potentially dangerous internal divisions.
By comparison, the fissures in Ukrainian morale are limited. In general, Ukrainian soldiers and officials keep a remarkably consistent patriotic tone, even after the setback in Bakhmut, with few reports of rifts over military strategy or other issues with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's leadership. But this means the weight of expectations bears down on Ukraine's counteroffensive. Last month, Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told reporters from The Washington Post that the counteroffensive may be "overestimated" given Ukraine's strength during the last push and its remarkable resilience over 14 months of the war. He warned of "emotional disappointment" if something huge wasn't achieved.
Reznikov may not just have been talking about domestic disappointment in Ukraine, where many are ready for some kind of return to normalcy even if they don't want to give up the fight against Russia. If Ukrainian forces are not able to keep up the momentum seen in previous counteroffensives with all the new military equipment and training they've recently received, some Western allies may begin to push for negotiations as their own morale is sapped. It's one more reason Ukraine has left many waiting for the counteroffensive: They need to get it right.
