Russia and Kyiv both need a breakthrough but a major offensive will be loaded with risk whoever strikes first
n the clear sky over the winter-yellowed marsh grasses on the outskirts of the town of Huliaipole, the bang and crump of artillery picked up pace like the thunderclaps of a distant but approaching storm.
Sooner or later, most likely in the next few months, one side would make its move and try to break the deadlock. The question is: who will strike first and where. While these defensive preparations are obvious, it is less clear whether the Russians are stealthily accumulating the means to go on the attack. The Ukrainians have been watching carefully, through drone, satellite and human sources, as the Russians move mechanised units from Crimea towards the eastern front in Donetsk and Luhansk.
The third phase is about to start, an all-out battle for decisive advantage using combined arms – mechanised infantry, artillery, air power and possibly waterborne assault – to overcome fixed positions. The world has not seen anything like it since the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, whileThe Bosnian war death toll of 100,000 has most probably already been surpassed. In Bosnia most of the dead were civilians, slaughtered by Serb forces.
The race is now on to constitute forces capable of overcoming such odds and achieving a breakthrough. Moscow already has a substantial troop reserve. Last year, it mobilised 300,000 recruits and sent half of them straight into battle with minimal training. The remaining 150,000 are being trained but it is not clear to what end. They could just be rotated in piecemeal to replace casualties, or Russia could be building a new armoured brigade.
“They attempted this last year, and it didn’t go well, and the forces that they have left are not as not as professional, and the equipment’s not as good.” “If we had just six tanks and the artillery to cover them, we would break their lines right here and really fuck them up,” he said. “I think the Ukrainian military command will try to play the same approach as they did before, simultaneously preparing the battleground for possible operations in different directions, and then striking where the conditions are the most favourable,” said Oleksiy Melnyk, co-director for foreign relations and international security programmes at the Razumkov Centre thinktank in Kyiv.
“The Russian frontline there looks problematic to me, with more shortages, with soldiers complaining and more discipline problems,” she said.What happens on the southern front will ultimately decide the outcome of the whole war. Whether or not Ukraine’s armed forces launch their first offensive in the east, at some point this year they will have to turn south if they are to liberate Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and ultimately Crimea.
The south also offers Russia the prospect of springing a strategic surprise, and the Ukrainians are aware of the danger. A Ukrainian intelligence officer said the Russians could push to the east of Huliaipole, at the hinge between the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk fronts at a place called Velyka Novosilka.
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