New offensives, new objectives

For Russia, it’s been a year of bold charges and bombardments, humiliating retreats and grinding sieges. Ukraine has countered with fierce resistance, surprising counteroffensives and unexpected hitand-run strikes.

Now, on the anniversary of Russia’s invasion that has killed tens of thousands and reduced cities to ruins, both sides are preparing for a potentially even more disastrous phase that lies ahead.

Russia recently intensified its push to capture all of Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland of the Donbas. Kyiv and its Western allies also say Moscow could try to launch a wider, more ambitious attack elsewhere along the more than 600mile front line.

Ukraine is waiting for battle tanks and other new weapons pledged by the West for it to reclaim occupied areas.

What’s nowhere in sight is a settlement.

The Kremlin insists it must include the recognition of the Crimean Peninsula, which it annexed illegally in 2014, along with the acceptance of its other territorial gains. Ukraine categorically rejects those demands and rules out any talks until Russia withdraws all forces.

While Putin is determined to achieve his goals, Ukraine and its allies are standing firm on preventing Russia from ending up with any of its land.

Experts warn that Europe’s largest conflict since World War II could drag on for years, and some fear it could lead to a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.

In recent months, Russian forces have tried to encircle the Ukrainian stronghold of Bakhmut and push deeper into the Donetsk region. Along with fulfilling its goal of capturing the entire Donbas, Moscow aims to wear down Ukrainian forces and prevent them from starting offensives elsewhere.

Bakhmut has become an important symbol of tenacity for Ukraine, as well as a way to tie up and destroy the most capable Russian forces. Both sides have used up ammunition at a rate unseen in decades.

Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said Russia has poured more troops and weapons into the Donbas and attacked other areas in an apparent bid to distract Ukrainian forces.

“Russia currently has the initiative and the advantage on the battlefield,” he said, noting Kyiv’s acute shortage of ammunition.

Russia has relied on its massive arsenal, and boosted production of weapons and munitions, giving it a significant edge. While Ukrainian and Western intelligence agencies observed that Moscow is running out of precision missiles, it has plenty of oldstyle weapons.

But even though Ukraine and its allies expect a wider Russian offensive beyond the Donbas, it could be a gamble for Moscow, which mobilized 300,000 reservists last fall to bolster its forces.

Igor Strelkov, a former Russian security officer who led separatist forces in the Donbas when fighting erupted there in 2014, warned that any big offensive could be disastrous for Russia because its preparation would be impossible to conceal and attackers would face a devastating response. He said an offensive would also raise logistical challenges like those that thwarted Russia’s attempt to capture Kyiv at the war’s start.

“Any large-scale offensive will quickly and inevitably entail very big losses, exhausting the resources accumulated during mobilization,” Strelkov warned.

Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow at RUSI in London, predicted any Russian offensive would fail, but said it could drain Ukraine’s resources and keep it from preparing its own large-scale counteroffensive.

“The big question is how much damage does the Russian offensive do before it runs out of steam, because that will dictate the Ukrainian position,” he said, noting that its aim could be to disrupt Kyiv’s ability to stage a counteroffensive.

Bronk said Ukraine spent the winter building up its mechanized brigades that had spearheaded autumn counteroffensives in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions and suffered losses.

He said Ukraine has a window of opportunity of six to eight months to reclaim more land, noting that Russia could launch another mobilization to recruit up to 500,000 more troops who could be readied for combat after at least six months of training.

Zhdanov said Ukraine could launch a new counteroffensive in late April or early May after receiving new Western weapons, including battle tanks. He predicted Ukrainian forces will likely attack from the Zaporizhzhia region to try to reclaim the ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk and cut the Russian corridor to Crimea.

“If Ukraine reaches the Sea of Azov coast, it will nullify all the Russian gains,” Zhdanov said, turning Putin’s victories “to dust.”