L’offensive d’hiver – Face B
The winter offensive - Side B
Let's recall the basics: a political confrontation, for example a war, supposes that both sides have a goal to reach and a strategy to achieve it according to the means of both sides. Within the framework of this strategy, operations are then implemented in various fields, military or not, in order to achieve the political goal. We add the essential fuel of this machinery: the hope that it will serve a purpose.
Perennial fame in Ukraine
All this, as Montaigne said, is "perennial wank", not in the sense of vain speculation, but of ever-changing contexts. The Ukrainian political objective could thus evolve from simply surviving the Russian invasion with a defensive strategy, then the growing hope from pushing the enemy back to the limits of February 24, then the victories helping to drive him completely out of the whole Ukrainian territory within its 1991 limits.
Russian ambitions, which are essentially those of Vladimir Putin, have also evolved over time in the opposite direction of the Ukrainians, the war being a zero-sum game. The current strategy, which could be renamed "Anaconda" if this animal existed in these latitudes, is that of pressure on Ukraine and its allies in all domains until it cracks somewhere: the support of Western public opinion or at least of the political classes, material support, the Ukrainian economy, the power of Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian battle corps, the morale of the population, etc., with possibly a domino effect until the end of the war. with possibly a domino effect until all hope is exhausted and thus in fine the obligation to negotiate unfavorably. We will then see what there will be to negotiate, the main thing is to come to the table as a winner. This may take three months, three years or ten years, it does not matter to Putin as long as the Russian "rear" holds on willingly or by force.
This is the framework in which the current Donbass 2 military operation can be interpreted. Taking into account the tactical mediocrity of its maneuver elements but the superiority of its firepower, and arguing that it is impossible to break through, the Russian command is hammering the front line with a single echelon. This is very similar to Operation Donbass 1 from April to early July, with only more men to be sacrificed. We can therefore assume, and the mix of efforts seems to show it, that the field objective of the operation is the same as at the time: the complete conquest of the two provinces of Donbass.
In the face of this, and considering that the political goals have not changed, the Western strategy in the confrontation with Russia is also that of "cracking pressure" through economic sanctions, the search for diplomatic isolation and aid to Ukraine. Thanks in part to this aid, the Ukrainian strategy is essentially military and aims at the destruction of the Russian expeditionary force in Ukraine, followed by the inability of Russia to retry the invasion.
To destroy an army, there is little known other modus operandi than attrition or annihilation. One fights by trying to inflict far more casualties on the enemy than on oneself, or one tries to dislocate a large unit in order to make it lose its coherence. In reality, the two can be combined, and the attrition operation may simply be an unsuccessful and prolonged annihilation operation. This is somewhat the case of Donbass 1, which aimed at encircling the main cities of the Donbass still under Ukrainian control and quickly turned into a great battle of attrition of ground gains and artillery bludgeoning on Ukrainians who did not want to let go. With the only breakthrough of the operation, at Poposna on May 9, the battle could have started to look like a battle of annihilation with the possibility of encircling Ukrainian forces in the Lysychansk pocket. This was not the case, but it was believed that the balance of power was even more favorable to the Russians after the battle because of the heavy Ukrainian losses.
The opposite was true. The absolute Russian losses were higher than the Ukrainian ones. Historical examples of positional fighting tend to show that the losses of the defenders are usually greater than those of the attackers in the initial phase of the battle - surprise effect, maximum use of firepower - but that things are reversed if the attack did not allow to conquer the enemy position and that one persists in spite of that for days, weeks or even months on this same position. The defense adapts, strengthens, and engages reinforcements of force or fire on an enemy better and better known, the share of direct fire also increases and in this context hits more those who are not buried.
In other words, if the primary objective is not to break through but to eliminate the maximum number of enemy fighters, it is necessary to combine a debauchery of shells in a very short time and a phalanx that can advance protected by armor and terrain while projecting a maximum of direct fire - and in this case heavy machine guns and machine guns make the majority of the toll - on those who seek to hold the ground. Once the advance is over, one must immediately switch to defensive mode and lock down the held area. This was the principle of the American operations against the fortified line in Korea in the spring of 1951, whose names, "Killer" or "Ripper", clearly indicate their primary purpose. Outside of these conditions, and if he persists, it is the attacker who ends up wearing himself out, as in the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
And then the losses are relative. Launching Donbass 1 in April in this form when there are only 180,000 men, already hard-pressed by the disaster in Kiev, without sufficient reinforcements in the face of a Ukrainian army that has mobilized the nation and is building or reinforcing its brigades at every turn is an aberration. One could argue that the tactical mediocrity of the Russian units did not allow to do otherwise. The answer is that it was necessary to take the time to mobilize forces at that time and to work in the rear for months before launching an offensive operation. In believing to wear out the Ukrainian army, it is the Russians in particular who have exhausted themselves. The crossing of the "strategic intensity curves", to use Alexander Svetchin's expression, finally crossed even earlier than expected in favor of the Ukrainians.
Inheriting thus the operational superiority, mixture of mass and superior average tactical level (NTM) the Ukrainians were able to counter-attack by carrying out this time two operations of annihilation on the two weak zones of the enemy. In the first case, in Kharkiv province in September, they were able to carry out an "Uzkub 1918", i.e. a breakthrough followed by an in-depth operation dislocating the enemy's position. In the second case in the province of Kherson in October-November by making a "Soissons 1918" by choking the bridgehead on the right bank of the Dnieper. They would have undoubtedly achieved their strategic military objective if they had been able to maintain this momentum and accumulate several more battles of annihilation in Luhansk or Zaporijjia for example. They did not succeed in doing so, due to the entropy of the operations, which also wore out the Ukrainian means, to the weather, and above all to the enemy, who was able to react. At this stage, we can simply imagine what would have happened if all the means, including armored vehicles of all types, promised for the spring of 2023 by the Ramstein coalition had been given in the summer of 2022.
Donbass, the return
So we find ourselves at the end of November at the starting point of the summer of 2022 with only a Russian fortified line denser than at that time. What to do? To achieve their current strategic objective, the Ukrainians have no choice but to attack the line, even though the Russians have taken the initiative for a new offensive operation.
One could imagine in absolute terms a mobile defensive combat in depth. The main forces do not hold the ground, but slow down the enemy and inflict blows as soon as possible, a large-scale version of the "anti-tank weave" that we learned in the 1980s, combined with the corrosion of guerrilla warfare in the rear. This is how the Ukrainians brilliantly defeated five Russian armies around Kiev in February-March, inflicted heavy casualties on them, and then took back the abandoned ground. Tactically, this would undoubtedly be to the advantage of the Ukrainians, who are obviously superior in capabilities and means in this form of combat. It is probably impossible for political and psychological reasons. There is no question of giving up Ukrainian ground, a bit like in 1917-1918 when many French generals refused to copy the German idea of defense in depth. The battle of Kiev was a battle suffered.
Another option is to hold the ground firmly at certain points but attack elsewhere, in Operation Killer or in search of a breakthrough, in the manner of the resistance to the "peace offensive" of 15 July 1918 on the Marne, followed by the counter-attack of Villers-Cotterêts three days later on the flank of the German attack. This implies having the means to maintain a group of forces, not necessarily in the first echelon, ready to counter-attack on a weak point detected in the enemy's position. The problem is that there is also a strong absorption of Ukrainian brigades to simply hold the line under Russian pressure, and we do not see the second echelon of at least ten brigades that would be necessary to attempt a counterattack. Nor have we necessarily identified a weak point in Russian positions that appear stronger than ever.
The third option is attrition and waiting. Make the Russians pay for every meter they gain with losses far greater than those of the Ukrainians, until the Russian army is sufficiently weakened and then, and only then, can the initiative be regained in order to launch the battles of annihilation which are the only way to advance towards victory. This requires patience in spite of enemy pressure, means and time to have the necessary critical mass to attack a solid defense line. This critical mass is made up of fire and shock resources that must be far superior to those of the enemy in the area under attack.
It is difficult to read the articulation of Ukrainian forces, perhaps even more so than those of the Russians. What we see is a high proportion of maneuver or territorial brigades engaged along the front line and therefore little in the second echelon, in the Poltava-Krasnohrad area in particular, to reach any point of the front, attack it, break through and exploit. It is always necessary to cover the Russian and Belarusian borders, probably with brigades at rest / reconstitution. What is also and above all noted is a big job of making new brigades, including an armored brigade and eight mechanized. More than 30,000 conscripts were called up for service in January, which is much higher than in previous months. Unlike the Russians, and despite the strategic urgency, it seems that the Ukrainians have apparently chosen to be patient before they can attack again in force.
It remains therefore first to determine if the Ukrainians can in the three months to come resist Donbass 2 by losing neither decisive ground (and Bakhmut is not a decisive ground), nor too many men, the two criteria were not necessarily compatible. The most difficult is perhaps in these conditions to resist to the idea to make Verdun everywhere, because if Verdun showed to the Germans the French determination, that was paid with superior losses at the French. The main thing in this phase is that Sloviansk and Kramatorsk do not fall and that at least two Russians fall for each Ukrainian. It will then be necessary to launch the two or three battles of annihilation that are needed to recapture the ground lost since February 24 and plunge the Russian army into impotence and Russia into doubt. This will undoubtedly require even more effort than the victories of September to November, and much more than the question of vehicles, it is the inadequacy of Ukrainian artillery that is of concern.
If these two bets are successful, Ukraine will have come closer to its strategic military objective of destroying the Russian army and to its political objective of total liberation of its territories. It will also have come closer to objects of "very high political gravity" such as the two separatist republics, Crimea or simply the undermining of Putin's power. However, in politics as in physics the approach of the strong gravity transforms the physics to its approach. There is no doubt that the perennial wobble is likely to move very strongly at this time without anyone knowing at this stage in what direction. There is no doubt also that if these two challenges are not met, the branloire will also move.