Ukraine is making limited advances in its counteroffensive against Russian forces but has yet to employ the kind of larger-scale operations that American officials believe could enable a breakthrough, officials and analysts say, deepening questions among some of Ukraine’s chief backers about whether Kyiv can move fast enough to match a finite supply of munitions and arms.
Five weeks into the highly anticipated operation, Ukrainian forces are attempting to weaken Russian defenses by firing fusillades of artillery and missiles and sending small teams of sappers into the sprawling minefields that constitute their adversary’s outermost ring of defense. But the pace of progress, in three main areas along a vast 600-mile front line, has generated concerns in the West that the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky may not deliver as powerful a blow as it could.
A U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share the American assessment of the operation, said the United States and other nations had trained Ukrainian troops on integrated offensive maneuvers and provided mine-clearing equipment including rollers and rocket-fired charges.
“Applying all those capabilities in a way that enables them to breach those obstacles, but do it quickly, is paramount,” the official said. At the same time, the official added, as Ukrainian forces face intense attacks from antitank munitions and armed Russian drones: “We don’t underestimate or under-appreciate that it’s a very tough situation.”
Underlying the evolving assessments of the operation, which Kyiv launched in early June after months of preparation, is a debate about the tactics that can best enable Ukraine to penetrate highly fortified Russian lines and recapture sufficient territory to potentially nudge President Vladimir Putin toward abandoning his goal of cementing permanent control over vast swaths of Ukraine.
Western officials and analysts say Ukraine’s military has so far embraced an attrition-based approach aimed largely at creating vulnerabilities in Russian lines by firing artillery and missiles at command, transport and logistics sites at the rear of the Russian position, instead of conducting what Western military officials call “combined arms” operations that involve coordinated maneuvers by large groups of tanks, armored vehicles, infantry, artillery and, sometimes, air power.
Ukraine’s military leaders argue that, lacking aviation might, they must avoid unnecessary losses against an adversary with a far larger pool of recruits and weaponry. To preserve manpower, Ukraine has fielded just four of a dozen trained brigades in the current campaign.
“We cannot use meat-grinder tactics as the Russians do,” Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine’s defense minister, said in an interview. “For us, the most precious thing is the lives and health of our soldiers. That is why our task is to achieve success at the front while protecting lives.”
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank that tracks daily battlefield developments, calculates that Ukraine has liberated some 250 square kilometers since the beginning of the offensive, far short of Western hopes and, as Zelensky acknowledged, slower than Ukrainian leaders had wished.
Expectations are high: a Ukrainian counteroffensive last fall yielded shocking gains against unprepared and undermotivated Russian troops, including the recapture of strategic areas in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions.
Military analysts say there are important differences this time that come down in Moscow’s favor. Unlike last fall, when Kremlin leaders appeared to doubt Ukraine’s ability to punch back, Russian forces have had months to plant mines, dig trenches and position anti-armor and drone units that have slowed Ukraine’s advance. And unlike in Ukraine’s recapture of the port city of Kherson, where Moscow struggled to resupply and defend positions across the Dnieper River, Russian forces along the front line have no major obstacles at their back.
While Russia’s military is showing signs of strain, including the dismissal of one senior commander, the reported death of another in a Ukrainian strike and the withdrawal of mercenary Wagner forces, it has shown itself to be a formidable adversary. Moscow has been able to ship fresh troops to the front lines, powered in part by Putin accelerating mobilization at home.
Another important feature of Moscow’s defenses are the omnipresent drones that provide Russian forces granular, real-time information about Ukrainian troops’ whereabouts, enabling them to conduct kamikaze attacks or tee up targeted strikes, a challenge that not even American forces — for all their combat experience in recent decades — have faced on this scale.
Analysts say that Ukrainian attempts to breach Russian defenses with armored units early in the offensive were met with overwhelming artillery, antitank missiles, loitering munitions and helicopter fire, generating significant losses. Ukrainian officials say Russia is especially quick to fire on armored vehicles and anti-mine equipment such as the Mine Clearing Line Charge (MICLIC) when they press forward.
As a result, Ukrainian commanders have embraced more low-profile advances involving groups of 15 to 50 people on foot, said Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. Some are sappers who advance on their bellies to find and disable enemy mines. Other infantry teams lie in wait with surface-to-air missiles to take down Russian helicopters.
Rob Lee, a former Marine infantry officer now at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said Ukraine’s tactics could minimize losses — but they come with trade-offs. “Advancing on foot will likely reduce the attrition they sustain,” he said. “But it means the advances will be slower and have less opportunity to achieve a rapid breakthrough.” Ukraine got a boost this month when President Biden authorized the provision of U.S. cluster munitions to Ukraine, unlocking an arsenal of controversial artillery ammunition that has the potential to tide Ukraine over until Western nations can produce more standard shells.
Analysts say that another impediment to mounting larger-scale operations is the limited training that Ukrainian troops received over the winter on those combined-arms tactics, something that American forces rehearse at a specialized training center year after year.
U.S. officials have been reluctant to comment extensively on Ukraine’s tactics because they don’t want to be perceived as criticizing a close partner at a time of existential threat.
Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Sims, a senior official on the U.S. military’s Joint Staff, noted that Ukrainian troops were being asked to employ new equipment and tactics “all while being shot at and bombed” as they attempt to traverse a massive minefield. He noted that it took months before breakthroughs occurred in other major historical battles.
“And so where they are gaining hundreds of meters a day, maybe a kilometer a day in some places, they’re doing that at great cost in terms of effort,” he told reporters last week. “This is hard warfare; it’s in really tough terrain; it’s under fire, and really, when you consider all of that, it’s pretty remarkable,” he said.
But as the campaign continues without large-scale gains, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top military officer, is making urgent appeals for donations of Western air power to offset Ukraine’s disadvantages.
While the Biden administration has not agreed to directly provide the F-16 fighter jets that Ukraine wants, the White House relented in permitting other countries to transfer their own U.S.-origin planes to Ukraine. A European-led training effort is expected to get underway next month.