Brian M Downing
Kyiv confirms that its long-awaited offensive has begun. The main attack is in Zaporizhzhia, as predicted here last year (http://www.downingreports.com/feint-and-opportunity-on-the-southern-front/). Units are moving south into the Russian-occupied land bridge along the Black Sea and Sea of Azov. The offensive probably has three phases: driving a wedge between Russian forces on the coast, forcing a major battle, and preparing for the Crimean campaign.
In the first phase, Ukrainian forces may drive on two cities – Melitopol and Berdyansk. They’re both near or on the Sea of Azov, both control communications along the land bridge, and both are being hit by Ukrainian long-range weapons and partisans. If one or both cities fall, the Russian position in Crimea would be imperiled. Putin may become even more desperate.
Phase one: the wedge
Moscow has had months to prepare defenses on the land bridge. Trench systems have been built, troops reinforced, and mines, antitank, and other weaponry sent in. The destruction of the Dnipro dam made Ukrainian attacks from Kherson almost impossible for months, which allows more Russians to shift to Zaporizhzhia.
The Russian army has probably improved from hard experiences in the last eighteen months, but training, leadership, and equipment remain below modern army standards. The best troops were wasted in fruitless attacks around Bakhmut. Supply lines to the land bridge are lengthy, circuitous, and vulnerable to partisan attacks. Long-range weapons are pummeling depots, especially around the land bridge hub of Tokmak. Recently acquired weapon put the Kerch Strait Bridge in danger.
Ukrainian advances thus far are promising, however they’ve not reached the main defenses about fifteen kilometers south. Formidable as they look on maps, the history of fixed defenses isn’t good. The Maginot Line, West Wall, Siegfried Line, and the Gin Drinkers Line all failed as weaknesses were found and exploited or as fortifications were skirted. Perhaps the list will soon contain the Putin Line.
Kyiv’s troops are better trained and motivated, enjoy interior lines of communication, and benefit from steady inflows of sophisticated Western arms. Closely watched will be the use of main battle tanks and lighter armor. The MBTs’ plating, guns, and targeting gear are vastly superior to any Russian counterpart but whether the Ukrainians have mastered using them is unclear. The same can be said of maintaining them in the heat and dust of summer.
The bulk of the armor likely hasn’t been sent into battle yet. It’s probably massed a few kilometers behind the lines, waiting to exploit weak points and advance the fifty kilometers or so to Melitopol and/or Berdyansk. The drives will more than likely be cautious like Montgomery rather than bold like Guderian.
Moscow knows the likely axes of advance and will seek to defend the Putin Line. Indeed, Putin and his generals may insist their troops hold at all costs – an inspiring order in melodrama but not necessarily in military reasoning. It might lead to costly, ineffective efforts to retake lost positions in some places and needless encirclements in others.
Phase two: the battle of the land bridge
If Ukrainian forces near the coast and drive a wedge between Russian forces on the land bridge, Moscow will be greatly alarmed and probably desperate. The Crimea, a mythic region in the Russian mind, would be imperiled and with it, logistical support to the Middle East and Africa. Rash counterattacks may be ordered, perhaps over and over again.
The campaign would in a sense become inverted, Ukrainian units would dig in and prepare to repel Russian counterattacks from both sides of the land bridge. Russian offensive capacity would again be tested, as it was around Kyiv and Bakhmut, where gains were short-lived, costly, and strategically pointless.
Russian counterattacks and spoiling attacks elsewhere will be based on political factors in Moscow, not military realities on the coast. Troops may have to pulled from elsewhere, leaving positions less ably defended. Putin may become desperate and more murderous. He may destroy the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant or even resort to chemical or nuclear weapons.
Failure to defeat the Ukrainian offensive will set the stage for phase three, the Crimean campaign, which will be discussed next.
©2023 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to fellow Hoya Susan Ganosellis.