The long road ahead for Ukraine's counteroffensives

Ukraine’s stunning victory in Kharkiv Oblast has reshaped the battlefield and dealt a powerful blow to Vladimir Putin’s ambitions in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces continue to wage a more gradual but no less important counteroffensive in southern Ukraine. This analysis will unpack them both and highlight some factors that will shape the road ahead. …

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Russia is cannibalizing its regular forces. Although Putin will not deploy conscripts, Russia likely has deployed many of the officers and non-commissioned officers responsible for training and leading them. Russia is also trying to fill shortfalls in infantry with personnel from other types of units, degrading their effectiveness. For instance, personnel from the 11th Army Corps’ 152 Missile Brigade appear to have fought as infantry during the Kharkiv counteroffensive, which tracks with Ukrainian military intelligence’s previous reports that Russia is attempting to recruit missile specialists and sailors to fight as part of ground units. Likewise, one Russian source blamed Russia’s shortage of infantry for its failure to destroy Ukrainian air defense systems during the Kharkiv counteroffensive, as personnel ordinarily tasked with locating such systems were instead diverted to the front lines.

Conversely, Kyiv possesses a large pool of well-motivated manpower, which has enabled Ukraine to replace losses and fill out reserve units with Western kit. However, many of these people have no prior military experience, which particularly limits their effectiveness in offensive operations. To address this issue, the United Kingdom in July launched Operation INTERFLEX, seeking to provide basic training to 10,000 mobilized Ukrainian troops every 120 days. A number of other Western contributors have since joined the effort. The Ukrainian General Staff said this week that almost 5,000 have completed the program, which reportedly is now being expanded from three to five weeks per training cycle to allow for more advanced training.

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Overall, the correlation of forces will likely continue to shift in Ukraine’s favor — provided Western military aid continues to flow. Kyiv’s needs are vast. The country is increasingly reliant on Western largesse to sustain the war effort. Ukraine’s stocks of ammunition for its Soviet-made artillery systems are running low, and Kyiv is clamoring for more tanks and armored vehicles to enable further offensive success. Last week, General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the Ukrainian military’s commander-in-chief, wrote that he hopes for enough Western kit to equip 10 to 20 combined-arms brigades, which Kyiv could use “to launch several consecutive, and ideally, simultaneous counterstrikes throughout 2023.”

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