Ukraine and its Western Backers Defend Kyiv’s Tactics Amid Growing Fears of Stalemate

Ukraine’s highly anticipated spring offensive has not stalled and is capable of advancing despite troubling signals from the front lines, Western officials and analysts say.

The situation facing forces loyal to the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appears on the bring of stalemate – yet again – weeks after it began a broad new campaign to liberate new territories and beat back the Russian invaders who, despite widespread dysfunction, have effectively defended many of their entrenched positions.

The stakes are high. While Western governments are looking to the offensive to prove the value of their billions invested in Ukraine’s military, troubling signs have emerged.

British military intelligence, which releases daily updates about Ukraine’s successes, acknowledged in one of its latest notes that elements of Russia’s armed forces appear to have finally found an effective war footing, in some cases by using excessive tactics.

Russia in recent weeks has prioritized and refined its operations aimed at slowing down Ukraine’s attempts to advance its tanks and other armored fighting vehicles in southern Ukraine, according to the assessment.

“The core of this approach has been Russia’s very heavy use of anti-tank mines. In some areas the density of its minefields indicate that it has likely used many more mines than laid down in its military doctrine,” the assessment states. “Having slowed the Ukrainian advance, Russia has then attempted to strike Ukrainian [armored] vehicles with one-way attack uncrewed vehicles, attack helicopters and artillery.”

It added, however, that “although Russia has achieved some success with this approach in the early stages of Ukraine’s counter-offensive, its forces continue to suffer from key weaknesses, especially overstretched units and a shortage of artillery munitions.”

Other leading Western officials in recent days have had to justify publicly why the Ukrainian offensive does not appear to be progressing as many expected.

“That it’s going slower than people had predicted doesn’t surprise me at all,” Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at an event at the National Press Club last week. “Is it happening slower than computers might have said or other people might have said? Yes. What I had said was this is going to take six, eight, 10 weeks. It’s going to be very difficult, it’s going to be very long and it’s going to be very, very bloody, and no one should have any illusions about any of that.”

Milley said that expectations for an operation or a campaign often differ from how they play out in reality.

“In real war, real people die, real people are on those front lines, real people are in those vehicles, real bodies are being shredded by high explosives and so on and so forth,” he said.

Dutch Adm. Rob Bauer, chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, similarly attempted to lower expectations for Ukraine’s offensive while speaking with reporters on Monday, saying, “The counteroffensive is, it is difficult. People should never think that this is an easy walkover. It will never be. There’s a considerable number of Russians in Ukraine. There’s considerable defensive obstacles.”

“War is never easy to predict,” Bauer said, but he stressed that the critical components in war are not limited to physical capabilities on the front lines.

“Ukrainians know what they’re fighting for,” he said. “The Russians don’t have a clue what they’re fighting for. And that difference you can actually see on the battlefield.”

Other positive signs have emerged about Ukraine’s prospects.

Faced with several miles of dense minefields, Ukraine has prioritized preserving its manpower while attempting to draw Russia into skirmishes that result in the destruction of its troops, equipment, fuel depots, artillery and air defenses. As Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov reported on July 4, “war of destruction is equal to a war of kilometers.”

The independent Institute for the Study of War noted in its latest analysis note that Danilov’s conclusion “underlines the prioritization of Ukraine’s ongoing campaign to attrit Russian manpower and assets over attempting to conduct massive sweeping mechanized maneuvers to regain large swaths of territory rapidly.”

NATO officials agree that Ukraine should be proceeding cautiously and avoiding high levels of casualties among its own forces and should not face criticism for making those decisions – at least for now.

And other Ukrainian officials have observed their forces have liberated roughly 15 square miles of territory in eastern and southern Ukraine in the last week alone.

“The current pace of Ukrainian operations is not indicative of a stalemate or evidence that Ukraine cannot retake large areas,” the institute concluded, noting several examples in the south and east in recent weeks of Ukraine exploiting the natural terrain to beat back Russian positions – chiefly the Dnipro river that roughly bisects the country and forces the westernmost invading troops to rely on bridges to resupply themselves.

It also noted a similar Russian attempt to launch an offensive in the winter and early spring failed to achieve any significant gains.

“The current Ukrainian counter-offensive is less dramatic and rapid than the one that liberated much of Kharkiv Oblast, more successful than the failed Russian winter offensive, and generally most like the slower but ultimately successful Kherson counteroffensive in its pace and initial progress,” it concluded.