Stakes are high in Ukraine’s latest fightback

A key strategic aim will be dividing Russian forces by advancing to the Sea of Azov, says The Wall Street Journal.

A Ukrainian serviceman fires a rocket launcher during a training exercise not far from front line in Donetsk region last week. Picture: AFP

Ukraine’s counteroffensive has begun against Russian forces in the country’s occupied east and south, and the stakes are extremely high for Kyiv and the West.

Let’s hope the reluctance by the Biden administration, Germany and France to provide more advanced weapons doesn’t hamper the effort.

Ukrainian forces have been probing Russian lines, using armoured US Bradley Fighting Vehicles and German Leopard 2 tanks. The Russians have built formidable, multi-layered defences with rows of trenches, concrete barriers and still more trenches with well-armed infantry. The flat and relatively open terrain across much of the frontline makes the advancing brigades vulnerable to artillery and aerial assaults, so ­casualties will likely be high.

This is where the US Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) with a range of up to 305km would be valuable in targeting Russian artillery and supplies beyond the front lines. But Washington has refused Kyiv’s request out of fear that Ukraine might use the missiles against targets inside Russia. Ukraine has refrained from doing so with other US weapons, but this excuse has been the Joe Biden pattern for the 16 months of the war.

The Ukrainian goal will be to retake as much territory as possible, and its forces could attack in many places across a 1000km front. A particular strategic objective will be to drive to the Sea of Azov. This would break up Russian supply lines to its troops in the south. It will also disrupt Russia’s so-called land bridge connecting Russian-occupied Donetsk to the Crimean peninsula. It’s no surprise that Russian defences are especially fortified in Zaporizhzhia Oblast against such an advance. No one should expect immediate or dramatic breakthroughs, as they could take many weeks or longer.

Crimea is also likely to be a Ukrainian target, even if it can’t be entirely retaken. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he wants to reclaim it. But even putting Crimea at risk will force Russia to spread its forces to defend its air and naval bases on the peninsula. This would also raise the political stakes for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia retains the military ­advantage in number of troops and firepower. It can also still do considerable damage from the skies, even if it doesn’t have total air superiority. Experienced Chechen forces loyal to Russia are said to be moving to the frontlines, ­replacing troops from the mercenary Wagner Group that have been taking heavy losses.

But the Wagner Group and Russian leaders are increasingly at odds. Russian army troops also suffer from low morale and poor training, especially compared to Ukrainian forces. Thanks in part to training by the US that began in 2014, Ukraine’s military has evolved into a more Western force that can employ a “combined arms” strategy that uses all of the elements of modern warfare. Russia remains a slower adapting top-down force, as it demonstrated during the failure of its initial assault on Kyiv last year.

Ukraine’s greatest advantage has been the willingness of its ­people to fight and die for their homeland. Russians have been conscripted to fight a war of occupation for reasons they don’t fully understand. Ukrainians are fighting for independence.

The stakes for Europe and the US are great. A Ukraine advance that recaptures much of its land would vindicate Western military and financial support. It would weaken Russia and draw Ukraine closer to the West. Russia without Ukraine as a Belarus-like satrapy is a much weaker threat to NATO, which has already expanded.

Europeans have awakened to the need to rearm after decades of neglect.

A Ukrainian failure to advance would encourage the isolationists on the US right and left to block more support. The next phase of the war will be difficult, and maybe long, but backing Ukraine is in America’s national interest. It would help if President Joe Biden explained the stakes to the American people.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL