Ukraine's summer counteroffensive is nearing the end of its second month—with no major territorial gains to show for it. But while Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky himself has expressed disappointment at the operation's "slower than desired" rate of progress, military analysts caution that it is far too early to deem the campaign either a failure or a success.
And a final verdict may not be available for months yet to come.
"We are still mostly in the phase of setting conditions," Mykola Bielieskov, a research fellow at Ukraine's National Institute for Strategic Studies, told Newsweek.
Although the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense does not make its war plans publicly available, most of the speculation surrounding the likely aims for this summer's campaign pointed to the probability of operations aimed at cutting Russia's "land bridge" to Crimea. The successful Ukrainian liberation of either the southern city of Melitopol or the Azov Sea port town of Berdyansk would effectively cut the ground lines of communication running between mainland Russia and the Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow has illegally occupied since 2014.
From there, Russian military targets in Crimea, including the Kerch Strait Bridge, would become even more vulnerable to attack from the American HIMARS and British Storm Shadow precision guided munitions that make up a critical part of Ukraine's increasingly Western arsenal.
However, thus far in the counteroffensive neither Melitopol nor Berdyansk has been seriously threatened. After failing to breach Russian minefields using Western-supplied armor back in the early days of June, Ukrainian forces have largely turned to attritional tactics in an attempt to gain the kinds of localized manpower and materiel advantages that might ultimately lead to the long-hoped-for breakthrough.
"For roughly the past six weeks, we have been working to degrade Russian artillery, air defense, and electronic warfare systems sufficiently to be able to begin safely massing mechanized formations," Bielieskov said. "But it may be another six weeks before the decision is made as to whether the risk of attempting to begin deploying major maneuver formations is worth it."
Bielieskov noted that an ultimate Ukrainian decision not to push ahead at all costs runs the risk of disappointing Western arms donors, who may be hoping to see a "return on investment." However, in the event that the defensive formations that the Russian occupiers have established in southern Ukraine prove to be too formidable an obstacle for an attacking force that does not enjoy air superiority, Bielieskov stressed that "an indecisive outcome is preferable to a clear failure."
"If a Ukrainian attempt to break through Russian defensive lines using massive amounts of troops and equipment is repelled, and if those troops and equipment are lost for future operations, then we can say that the counteroffensive has failed," he said.
For Ukrainian war planners, the situation creates a serious dilemma. Russian occupying forces have established fortified defensive positions along a front line running from Kherson region in the country's south up to areas of Kharkiv region in the northeast. Russia also maintains a contingent of troops inside its own territory along Ukraine's northern border.
To the West, Russian troops frequently rotate through neighboring Belarus as part of the types of "training exercises" that have in the past served as cover for troop buildups. Although the Russian military's offensive potential has been significantly degraded over the past 17 months of fighting, if Ukraine were to suffer such heavy losses while on the attack that it no longer proved capable of holding back that diminished Russian force, Kyiv could once again find itself under direct threat from enemy ground forces.
"If the Ukrainians push forward too hard too fast with the headstrong objective of liberating square kilometers, they could use up a lot of resources that, big picture, long term, would detract from their ability to defend their state," George Barros of the Institute for the Study of War told Newsweek.
"If they burn through too much equipment, if they degrade too many forces, if they lose too many competent officers, if they suffer demoralization in any significant way, then even if they manage to take back some amount of territory, that's not necessarily a win," he added.
However, if decision makers in Kyiv prove to be too cautious, failing to inflict potentially demoralizing losses on the Russian military, thus allowing them to spend the autumn mud season further fortifying minefields and trenches in advance of the winter freeze, Ukraine risks becoming embroiled in a war of attrition that the smaller state may not be able to survive.
"The Ukrainians can't win a war of attrition with Russia," Barros said. "If it had a larger GDP, a larger population, or a larger resource base than the Russian Federation, then maybe it could. But it doesn't."
Although both Ukraine and Russia are very protective of their respective casualty figures, one aspect of those casualties is undeniable: Ukraine is losing a far more valuable segment of its human capital than Russia is. While Russian trenches are often manned with relatively older, often economically disadvantaged mobilized personnel from the provinces, Ukraine has seen a significant portion of its cultural elite and educated middle classes volunteer, fight, and in at least thousands of cases, die in the conflict.
Despite the provision of nearly $100 billion worth of Western military aid since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion last year, Ukraine still does not have sufficient quantities of air defense systems to protect both its cities and its front line troops, nor the quantities of armored mine clearing equipment necessary to facilitate a breakthrough, nor the quantities of aircraft necessary to provide cover for advancing troops, nor the quantities of precision guided munitions necessary to strike every known Russian logistics hub and command post.
"In order to end the war, the West needs to start delivering buckets of aid instead of teaspoons," Ukrainian security expert Anton Gerashchenko told Newsweek.
Last month the G7 countries—the United States, Canada, the U.K. France, Germany, Italy, and Japan— issued a formal statement promising to ensure the creation of "a sustainable force capable of defending Ukraine now and deterring Russian aggression in the future." Without a significant increase in military aid, however, it is difficult to imagine how such a force could come into being.
"For as long as Russian aerial attacks are striking Ukrainian factories, we cannot produce the weaponry ourselves," Gerashchenko said. "We need a breakthrough, but until we have an equipment and manpower advantage of 3:1 in specific sectors, mathematically it is all but impossible for us to reach our goals."
For now, Ukrainian operations continue to move forward as best they can with the equipment they have.
"Early in the summer, a lot of Ukraine supporters in the West were hopeful that we were going to be able to just break through the line, that Russian morale and logistics would crumble, and that it was only a matter of weeks before they withdrew," Eddy Etue, a prior service U.S. Marine who has fought with multiple Ukrainian units, told Newsweek.
"That was unrealistic," he added, "and most of us here knew it. Now we're just back to the grind, wearing the Russians down for as long as it takes."
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
