Ukraine will launch its long-awaited counteroffensive in the coming weeks. Expectations are high, understandably. However, the U.S. and its allies must recognize the air-naval fundamentals of the Ukraine war.
The conflict will end only when Russia’s control of the Black Sea is broken and when Ukrainian airspace is free from Russian threat. The most effective path to victory is to equip Ukraine with the naval capabilities to sink Russian ships and the air-naval capabilities to attack Russian ports and strategic sites within Russia.
Over the last six months, Ukraine has accomplished three strategic objectives. First, it stopped Russia’s winter offensive, which the Kremlin launched after successive defeats in Kharkiv and Kherson. That offensive’s objective was to harass the Ukrainian military at multiple points along the front line. But Ukraine, by defending Bakhmut against American advice, halted the Russian assault. After six months of combat and tens of thousands of casualties, Russia looks to have taken the city, but its forces now find themselves at a lower elevation than Ukraine’s forces around them.
Russia has made no progress along any other axis. Putin still cannot float the prospect of a victory or ceasefire, however disingenuous, since he has not achieved even his minimally defined war aim, the conquest of the Donbas. Ukraine’s foiling of the enemy’s offensive, breaking his newly-mobilized forces, and destroying his equipment is a victory in and of itself.
Second, the Ukrainian military has created a potent offensive force. As Western equipment continues to arrive, Ukraine now has 12 fresh brigades for breakthrough and exploitation against the Russian line. Five are heavier in composition, with a higher proportion of tanks and armored guns, and likely to be used to penetrate the Russian defenses. Seven are lighter, with many wheeled and tracked high-mobility vehicles and more mobile artillery. These can exploit the breakthrough and drive into Russia’s rear areas, collapsing its command and control system.
Third, Ukraine has received long-range, stealthy Storm Shadow missiles, additional fighter aircraft, Western-built tanks with NATO-standard ammunition, and has constructed more drones of various types, ranging from deep attack tools to tactical reconnaissance copters. This has allowed Ukraine to hollow out the Russian line, hitting command posts, logistics depots, road and rail links, air bases, and high-value military equipment. Ukraine’s offensive will begin when Ukrainian military intelligence finds that the Russian logistical system has crumbled enough to jeopardize Russian mobile responses.
However, this will not end the war. Unless Ukraine has the long-range ground attack and anti-ship missiles to disrupt all supplies to Crimea, Russia will be able to hang on, stabilize the situation, conduct another mobilization round and keep fighting through to this winter.
Indeed, this is almost certainly the Russian strategy — absorb Ukraine’s punch now, accept the extreme casualties and major loss of terrain this will entail and hang on until winter. Western support, Russia assumes, will have splintered by then, particularly as the American presidential election gets underway and Western European populations tire of the war’s continued economic disruption.
Just a withdrawal to Crimea would tax Russian forces to their limit. Yet even if Russia were forced to withdraw from Crimea altogether, it would still be able to continue its strike campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure, while shifting its fleet to Novorossiysk, the previous (albeit less suitable) Black Sea Fleet base. Ukraine could position air and missile defenses in Crimea, but more likely than not, it would have to reserve many of those defenses for the Ukrainian mainland instead of the peninsula.
The above points to a stark reality: The West must begin to put in place the capabilities within and around Ukraine to break Russia’s control of the Black Sea, destroy the Russian navy and provide Ukraine with the military capabilities to defend its airspace and strike within Russian territory.
First, the U.S. should immediately transfer anti-ship missiles to Ukraine. The Ukrainian navy has likely employed Western anti-ship missiles already. But the West can transfer Ukraine a greater supply of Harpoons and Naval Strike Missiles depending upon production time.
Second, the U.S. decision to train Ukrainian pilots to operate F-16s is sound. There is a good reason to wait on F-16 deliveries. The Biden administration has only so much cash remaining to pay for Ukrainian-bound arms. And F-16s, although critical in the long-term, are not so in the short-term, given the fundamentals of ground combat in this war.
Third, the U.S. should provide Ukraine with a suite of anti-submarine warfare capabilities that Ukraine can integrate into its unmanned naval force. These should emphasize mines, torpedoes, sonobuoys and other acoustic listening devices. By improving Ukraine’s anti-submarine capabilities, the U.S. can frustrate Russia’s ability to blockade southern Ukraine, thereby breaking Russian control of the Black Sea — Russian submarines are currently invulnerable to Ukrainian reprisal. This would also allow the U.S. to glean valuable operational lessons from the use of unmanned systems in anti-submarine operations — lessons that apply directly to the Indo-Pacific as it prepares for a confrontation with China over Taiwan.
Fourth, and most critical, the U.S. should consider the weapons that Ukraine needs to strike within Russia proper. Russia’s long-range strategic bombardment is lethal and effective. Halting it requires a Ukrainian strike capability.
This means providing Ukraine with Western-built cruise missiles, assisting its development of long-range drones and bolstering its defense industry’s creation of indigenous missiles, all of which can be used to target Russian air bases, logistical sites within Russia, and high-value low-density assets such as the A-50 airborne radar platform and the Kinzhal hypersonic equipped MiG-31.
This also demands succoring Ukraine with the naval capabilities to strike Russia’s Black Sea ports, oil facilities, and road and rail logistical links. After all, how can peace be achieved when the enemy retains its ability to inflict grievous damage from its own territory?
Ukraine faces a difficulty shared by any small power. It can land heavy blows against its foe, but absent a political collapse in the Kremlin, it cannot terminate the war on favorable terms.
Even if Ukraine liberates every square mile of its territory in the next six months, it will still face a ferocious Russian bombardment and blockade. To win this war, for Ukraine and for the West, the U.S. and its allies must prepare Ukraine for a new, long-term air-naval struggle against Russia in the Black Sea.
Seth Cropsey is founder and president of Yorktown Institute. He served as a naval officer and as deputy undersecretary of the Navy.