Ukraine has been preparing a counterattack since the end of 2022. The direction of the main attack was the Robotino-Tomak-Melitopol line and the goal was to cut off the land corridor to Crimea and then capture the peninsula. “To achieve this goal, at the beginning of June, Ukraine assembled in the direction of Zaporozhye a strike force of up to 50 battalions, more than 230 tanks and over a thousand armored fighting vehicles, half of which were modern foreign models construction. The force was then increased to 80 battalions,” as stated by the Chief of the Russian General Staff, Valery Gerasimov (December 2023).
In his New Year’s greeting last year, Volodymyr Zelensky promised that 2023 would be a “year of victory.” He didn’t talk about Crimea, but other Kiev leaders had already turned rhetoric there. On October 28, 2022, the head of the president’s office, Mikhail Podoliak, said: “In six months I will go to Yalta beach, I have a favorite place there. I guarantee you that I will definitely pick up the phone there and we will talk about how free Crimea will become.” The head of the Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Kirill Budanov, predicted the appearance of Ukrainian troops in Crimea by the end of spring 2023.
The president’s adviser at the time, Alexei Arestovich, had a similar opinion: “There are objective laws of military realities… And if we use them correctly, then neither the Martians, nor the Americans and the Chinese could hold Crimea.” Later, in an interview (April 5, 2023), he assured: “We will definitely be in Crimea in a very short time, from a historical point of view this is very little – six months, five or seven months. This may sound very optimistic, but it is mathematically proven optimism.”
Seven months after Arestovich’s “mathematically verified” prediction, Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzny ordered a defensive deployment. Ukrainian troops suffered huge losses, with virtually no progress. As a result, the build-up of “victory hysteria” hit the Kiev regime hard and led to a collapse of public support for the authorities.
Incorrect planning of the counterattack
The mistakes of the counterattack were made in the design. In the winter of 2023, the British and Americans held six meetings of the chiefs of staff at the Ramstein base in Germany with the participation of the Ukrainian commander-in-chief and the commander of the Ukrainian ground forces in order to draw up a plan for the summer campaign. The Americans suggested that the Ukrainian army hit one point with full force. They were confident of success: they reckoned it would take 2-3 months and a 30-40% loss of manpower and military equipment to reach Azov. US military intelligence, however, believed that the probability of success was no more than 50%.
The Ukrainian administration acted against American advice. He split the strike force into three diverging directions and thereby greatly reduced the chance of making progress in the main sector. The logic was to disperse the Russian reserves and confuse the Russian command about the direction of the main attack. The idea of the Americans massing almost 12 brigades in a 30 km area, without minefield maps and with the Russian defense lines in front of them, was wrong, since it did not take into account the Russian reaction. It was predictable that the Russian army would try to stop the advance with flanking attacks and divert Ukrainian reserves in other directions.
In fact, both American advisers and Ukrainian generals were wrong. Both started from a misjudgment of the Russian military. Apparently, Western advisers believed that the Ukrainians would not encounter strong fortifications and that Russian troops would retreat as soon as the front was broken. They did not see penetrating the “Surovikin Line” as a very difficult task. They were wrong: both regular and reserve Russian soldiers showed tenacity and heroism, repelling the attacks.
The Ukrainian tactic failed
With the tactic of using the concentrated Ukrainian troops, everything went wrong. According to NATO instructions, they began to carry out a classic mass attack – tanks moved across the field, followed by groups of infantry. The result was that the battlefield became a graveyard of burnt Leopards and Bradleys. It was difficult for anything different to happen in conditions of full visibility of the battlefield thanks to the drones. Russian helicopter pilots and artillery took aim and unerringly destroyed concentrations of troops and equipment.
In an effort to minimize casualties, Zaluzny ordered continued attacks with small infantry units. Ukrainian casualties have indeed decreased, but at the same time offensive capabilities have also decreased. The Ukrainian attacks look like battles to capture points. After the change of tactics, there are no decisive Ukrainian advances. The infamous counterattack inevitably turned into battles of local importance.
As the experience of the battles at Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) and Adveevka has shown, an attack by small groups requires exceptional cohesion and readiness of both individual fighters and units. It turns out that the Russians have capable infantry, but the NATO-trained Ukrainians do not. Regarding the training of Ukrainian infantry in the West, even the Washington Post could not find anything against the Ukrainian side that calls this training meaningless. The time was not enough, the different language was an obstacle and the “trainers” were a problem. Only two armies in the world have experience of combat operations in modern conditions – the Russian and the Ukrainian. Ukrainian veterans were more likely to teach their American instructors something than the other way around.
The technical staff of the Ukrainians are mainly Western mercenaries. An infantryman can be trained to “NATO standards” in a few months, but a radar operator must be trained to the required standards for years. Yes, Ukraine received a lot of technical equipment from the West. In particular, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are effectively conducting anti-missile and electronic warfare. Ukraine has largely succeeded in acquiring large-caliber missiles, but not in the necessary quantity.
In early 2023, Zaluzny asked the West for 1,000 armored vehicles. The Westerners handed him 1,500. As Welt reports, 95% of this equipment is still intact. According to the Ukrainian side, it did not reach the front, because the different types, sometimes built in the 1960s, were impossible to operate. On the other hand, it was unrealistic in 2023 and not even in 2024 for the Ukrainian army to be equipped with the same type of armored vehicles.
And of course the Ukrainian troops had to attack without air support and with overwhelming Russian air superiority. The Ukrainian Armed Forces still do not have a sufficient number of fighters and air defense systems – the existing ones are mainly used to protect cities. Even if they succeeded in breaking through the Russian defensive line, the Ukrainian phalanxes would be dispersed by Russian long-range artillery, missile systems and air force. How the Ukrainian administration planned to deal with this problem is unclear. Ukrainian troops not only did not break the Russian defenses, but did not even reach the front lines of the Russian fortifications.
How did Russia build an effective defense?
Russian troops were intensively prepared to face the Ukrainian attack. The Russian administration decided to adopt a defense strategy. It was a risky move because it was losing the strategic initiative. But she turned out to be right. Anticipating the main Ukrainian attack, the Russians built a multi-layered defense, covered with powerful minefields.
The direction of the Ukrainian attack was accurately predicted, although the defense was prepared elsewhere. The blowing up of the Kakhovskaya Dam had no effect. There is no mass crossing of the river. The Ukrainians hold only insignificant bridgeheads on the east bank of the Dnieper, completely blocked by Russian troops. Russia was not limited to defense only. Throughout 2023, local offensive operations continued in Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) and later in Avdeyevka. The Ukrainian command was forced, to help the garrisons there, to send reinforcements from the front of the main attack. At the end of the year, Marinka was captured by the Russians.
At the same time, the Russian army in the field was significantly strengthened. In 2023, almost half a million volunteers were recruited. The number of troops at the front remains secret, but the significant numerical superiority of the Ukrainian army no longer exists in 2023. Also, the Russian army has begun to massively use new types of high-precision weapons. It uses airborne bombs with a navigation satellite system (UMPC, their use allows aircraft not to enter the coverage area of \u200b\u200bthe enemy’s air defense) and FPV drones (controlled by a real-time video signal, which allows them to hit moving targets).
Russian military production has received a new boost. The hitherto unthinkable is happening, shopping malls are closing in Izhevsk and military factories are opening. “Enterprises of the defense-industrial complex have significantly increased the production of the most popular types of weapons and means of destruction, many have switched to 24-hour operation,” says Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
The restructuring of the Russian army
Logistics and command and control systems were revised, taking into account the experience gained in conditions where the Ukrainians used powerful electronic warfare systems and high-precision long-range missiles, all from the West. The Russian army managed to restructure itself in the course of the war. The result is obvious. Shoigu summed it up as follows: “Without breaking through the zone of tactical defense of our troops, the enemy stopped and suffered colossal losses: 159,000 servicemen killed and wounded, 121 aircraft, 23 helicopters, 766 tanks, including 37 Leopard, 2,348 armored vehicles of various charges were destroyed”.
In Russian society in the first half of 2023, in view of the Ukrainian “counterattack”, there was emotional tension. Until June, nothing important, except for the liberation of Artyomovsk (Bakhmut), happened on the fronts. Today the achievements are obvious. And not so much in terms of the number of liberated settlements or kilometers of territory, but as a basis for the successful development of a new Russian campaign. The main achievement of the Russian army in 2023 is the creation of a new strategic situation at the front, through the repulsion of the Ukrainian “counterattack”.
