NATO’s Pledges to Ukraine Fall Short for a Counteroffensive This Year
NATO’s Pledges to Ukraine Fall Short for a Counteroffensive This Year
www.nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Despite billions of dollars in additional weapons and security assistance that NATO announced this week, allied officials said Ukraine would not be ready to launch a dramatic counteroffensive or retake large swaths of territory from Russia until next year.
Donations of missiles, combat vehicles, ammunition and air defenses from the United States and European countries will take weeks, if not months, to reach the front lines.
Some of the newly committed weapons have not yet been bought or built.
This has been known for some time.
Its also a year where Russia is going all out, sacrificing troops for miniscule gains. Its not the time to attack. Instead, its the time for Ukraine to sit back and defend. With any luck, Ukraine can minimize the Russian gains this year, and next year is the next chance they have (after Russian troops are exhausted) to do something about it.
if they can attack they should at it forces russia to defend their whole line. If they don't attack russia can leave the line undefended and thus concentrate forces for their attacks.
that is a big if though as ukrain needs to defend their lines.
You need over 3 attackers to counteract 1 defender today.
Any attack, especially in today's always-connected, drone-scouted, satellite image war, will get counter-attacked / counter-bombarded by artillery, hampering the attacker and giving huge advantages to the defender.
Furthermore, well prepared landmines force attackers into performing tasks (ex: demining), which itself can be detected and reacted upon. (Ex: enemy tanks will always run single-file down a de-mined lane. You can take your time to position anti-tank Javelins, Stuga, or BONUS artillery given the obvious and predictable paths that landmines force).
Russia still outnumbers Ukraine. Having the Russians kill themselves over Ukrainian defenses is the best preparation, as it means there will be fewer defenders next year when Ukraine is ready to attack.
The only problem with the plan is that Russia might have been smart enough to defend and prepare instead. But Ukraine figured out the politics too well (ex: Russia clearly wants Donestk and Luhansk regions this much, and are willing to pay for it in blood). So Ukraine can just sit, defend, and deny Russian control over these regions. Leading to a political loss for Putin while still not having to deal with today's defense-advantaged technology.
Just keep in mind that russians get ~1mil conscripts a year. They can keep feeding their mince machine for a long time to come. Besides massively more support with heavy weapons without restrictions, I am not entirely sure Ukraine can outlast old ussr stockpiles...
Its not people that Russia will run out of, but instead equipment.
Russia moved from T-72 tanks, to T-55 tanks, and now golf-carts and motorcycles. Russia has moved from 152mm artillery and regular thermobaric rockets to heavy mortar. And now that mortar is getting blown up, the Russians are begging the North Koreans for more shells and artillery.
We're clearly witnessing the degeneration of the entirety of Russian force technology. Meanwhile, F16s are about to join the Ukrainian side as Ukraine gets more and more upgrades.
Once the equipment runs out, then what? No number of Russians on golf-carts / motorcycles will allow for a match vs a Ukrainian M2 Bradley.