Experts warn Ukraine’s frontline push is being damaged by West

Western pressure on Ukraine’s counteroffensive to achieve a “Hollywood”-style breakthrough against Russia’s forces is “unrealistic” and Kyiv’s allies must be prepared for the war to “drag on far longer” than they imagined, experts have said.

Facing heavily fortified Russian defences, including vast minefields and heavy shelling during its summer counteroffensive, Ukraine has been forced to broaden its focus away from the front lines

With rains expected to muddy the battlefield in areas of the south and east of the country – including Zaporizhzhia – as soon as September, the “odds are getting longer” on the “triumphant breakthrough” many in the West were hoping for, analysts have told The Independent.

While Kyiv has made some advances and reclaimed a number of towns and villages, progress has been slow. However, Ukrainian forces are having “real successes” in degrading Russia’s military capabilities and zapping the morale of its increasingly stretched forces.

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Those efforts to hit supply lines, and destroy weapons depots and artillery pieces, are “going to matter in the long-term a lot more than taking a village here or a town there”, said Mark Galeotti, director of the Mayak Intelligence consultancy – who still did not rule out a surprise breakthrough by Kyiv’s forces.

“Although one can be disappointed about the counteroffensive in the short term, in the long term it’s leading to a situation where, come next spring, the Ukrainians are going to increasingly be fielding a competent 21st-century army – while the Russians are fielding a 20th-century army,” he added.

The outcome of this year’s counteroffensive “may have been predetermined by Western choices” not to go far enough in arming Ukraine, meaning Kyiv’s forces are fighting “under conditions that no Western military would contemplate”, said Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House think tank.

Progress “was always going to be slow and painful” because Western hesitation “gave Russia more than ample time” to construct the defences Kyiv is now “having to push through at immense cost”, Mr Giles said.

“We should be prepared for this war to drag on far longer than people have imagined,” he said, stressing the need for Western voters to remain mindful of the “disastrous outcomes of a Russian victory”.

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It is “the sad reality” that, rather than the West, it is Russia who “is holding the clock right now”, said Dr Marina Miron, of King’s College London’s war studies department, pointing to Vladimir Putin’s past questioning of Nato’s stamina for supporting Ukraine in what the Russian president views as “a contest of political wills”.

But Dr Miron warned that the narrative of a fixed Ukrainian counteroffensive – facing a ticking clock as winter approaches – was simplistic, saying: “In this kind of contemporary warfare you don’t have clear-cut offensive/counteroffensive operations ... it doesn’t fit squarely into those categories any more.”

Ukraine appears to be trying to hold out until it receives more military equipment, according to Dr Miron, while adopting asymmetric tactics, such as the use of cheap drones to hit the Black Sea fleet and targets within Russia, such as Moscow and Belgorod. While Ukraine rarely claims responsibility for such attacks, officials are happy to play up the impact on the Kremlin and say that more attacks will be forthcoming.

“It’s not just about taking territory, it’s about the psychological impact, it’s about degrading Russia’s logistic capabilities,” she said.

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However, Dr Miron cautioned that attacks on Russian soil “might well be playing into Russia’s hands” by seemingly “reinforcing” Mr Putin’s narrative of the war, and lending him justification for a further mobilisation of citizens, while alienating Western allies fearful of escalation.

Despite scepticism over a huge Ukrainian breakthrough pre-winter, Mr Galeotti suggested that Kyiv will be hoping, if not to break Russia’s land bridge between the Russian-occupied peninsula of Crimea and eastern Donetsk, to at least bring it within the range of shelling and rocket attacks. Kyiv has repeatedly said it plans to retake Crimea and all territories seized by Russia since it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In the south, there are reports of a Ukrainian push across the Dnipro River, near the recaptured city of Kherson, while Russian forces have mounted their own offensive towards Kupyansk in the north.

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Russia’s efforts there “might delay but won’t alter Ukraine’s strategic objective to reach the Black Sea coast and break Russia’s land bridge”, said Jaroslava Barbieri, of the University of Birmingham.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s positions near the land bridge could be strengthened by drawing more Russian troops to the Dnipro River, where the “symbolic role of Kherson as one of the first cities to fall under Russian occupation” could have a “strong demoralising effect on Russian soldiers”, said Ms Barbieri.

Warning that Western complaints over the pace of Kyiv’s counteroffensive are “a major source of frustration in Ukraine”, Ms Barbieri added: “Kyiv is aware of electoral pressures in key Western countries and feels the pressure to demonstrate that Western military aid is making a difference.

“But a bigger priority is urging international audiences not to look at the counteroffensive as a Hollywood film and warning of the dangers of accepting a peace on Russian terms.”