With just weeks to go before the fall rains turn the plains to mud, the vaunted Ukrainian summer offensive has produced disappointing results.
Ukrainian forces have made limited local gains in their drive towards Melitopol but failed to sever Russia’s land bridge to Crimea.
The weather will soon bring a halt to large-scale operations. Contrary to popular belief, mud not snow stopped the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, just as it will halt the Ukrainian offensive.
Beginning in mid-October, heavy rains produce what the Russians call the rasputitsa (“muddy road”) when fields become quagmires impassible by heavy vehicles.
Several factors explain Ukraine’s disappointing lack of progress. All of them point to the likelihood of a protracted stalemate.
First, Russia is now waging the kind of war its army is best equipped to fight.
The Russian army has a narrow tooth-to-tail ratio: too few people providing logistic support to frontline troops, which made it hard to sustain the rapid advance on Kyiv that failed so miserably in the spring of 2021.
However, that weakness does not hamper defensive operations. The Russians have had ample time to prepare multiple defensive lines supported by minefields, booby traps and gun emplacements and to build up munitions stockpiles close to the front.
The Russian military’s superiority in aircraft, rockets and artillery has allowed it to punish the attackers and damage infrastructure deep in Ukraine.
The conflict now looks more like a World War I trench stalemate than a World War II war of maneuver.
Second, Ukrainian forces have waged a less effective campaign than they might have done.
Despite its embrace of the West and billions in military aid provided by the U.S. and its allies, Ukraine still has Soviet-style armed forces.
They have been slow to adopt what the Prussians discovered in the 19th century and all Western armies extoll today: Auftragstaktik, mission-based tactics that encourage junior officers and non-commissioned officers to take initiative, exploiting tactical opportunities.
Progress has been made in addressing this weakness but not fast enough to yield decisive results. A June 23 New York Times article celebrated the deployment of nine brigades, 36,000 troops, capable of “combined arms tactics — synchronized attacks by infantry, armor and artillery forces — that they learned from American and other Western troops.” This noteworthy accomplishment nonetheless highlights how much the rest of the army must change to be more effective.
U.S. analysts have also criticized Ukraine for misallocating resources and diverting forces and equipment from the main thrust in the south to the far less important Bakhmut front. They blame this decision on “old Soviet Communist doctrine, which seeks to minimize rivalries among factions of the army by providing equal amounts of manpower and equipment across commands.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the United Nations more military aid is crucial to defeating Russia. More and better equipment will certainly help Ukraine sustain the war but probably not decide its outcome.
Supplying the Ukrainians with 155mm artillery shells is one thing, giving them advanced, high-tech equipment is quite another.
F16s illustrate the challenge. No sooner had the jets been promised than it became clear that few Ukrainian pilots had the English language skills necessary to be instructed on their use.
Once that hurdle is overcome, a lengthy period of training must follow. The U.S. Air Force can train an experienced pilot to fly an F16 in five months, and an inexperienced one in eight. Teaching those pilots to handle the aircraft proficiently in combat, however, may take up to two years.
Although superior to older Russian jets, the F16s will not contain the latest avionics and other equipment as those flown by U.S. pilots. Russia’s sophisticated air defense system and proficient use of Man-portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) may prevent the aircraft from being the anticipated game changer.
These factors suggest that while Ukraine is in no immediate danger of losing the war, it may not be able to win it either, especially if winning means liberating all lost territory. The Ukrainians clearly cannot prevail in a war of attrition against a much larger nation with far greater wealth, population and resources.
Barring a major Ukrainian battlefield victory, which seems unlikely, it would take a profound change in Russian attitudes to turn the tide in Ukraine’s favor. All indicators suggest that will not happen. Russian public support for the war remains strong.
The Kremlin has mitigated the effects of Western sanctions by dramatically increasing its trade with China, India and Turkey. Iran has been supplying the Russian military with drones, and North Korea may soon provide it with artillery shells.
How then might this terrible war end? One possibility is a negotiated settlement, which would at this point require Zelensky to accept the loss of territory and Putin being willing to negotiate. Neither seems likely.
A frozen conflict like the one that has existed on the Korean Peninsula since 1953 seems far more probable. In such a scenario, both sides would build up their forces and engage in sporadic fighting but avoid a major confrontation.
After sustaining heavy losses early in the summer offensive, Ukrainian commanders have been prudent, avoiding large costly assaults in favor of small local attacks for incremental gains. If that pattern persists, the war could last, as one British general predicts, “decades.”
Unfortunately, a protracted war increases the problem of donor fatigue. More than half of Americans still support providing aid to Ukraine at the same or higher levels, but opposition is growing among Republicans, who are making it an issue in current budget negotiations.
Donor fatigue has also arisen in Europe. The Polish prime minister just announced that his country would “no longer transfer weapons to Ukraine.” The frontrunner in Slovakia’s Sept. 30 election has declared he would “not send a single round to Ukraine.” Fortunately, support for Ukraine remains strong in most other NATO countries as have pledges of aid.
After all it has suffered and sacrificed, giving up on Ukraine would be a tragic mistake. If they are willing to fight, we must help them for as long as it takes.
Tom Mockaitis is a professor of history at DePaul University and author of “Conventional and Unconventional War: A History of Conflict in the Modern World.”