Before the war begins, national strategies developed during peacetime influence how we think about war and its goals. After the fight, a new logic is created. The strategy is re-evaluated. The objectives change. This is illustrated by the battle of Bakhmut.
When general Sergey Vladimirovich surovikin took command of the Russian military on the Ukrainian theatre last year, Vladimir Putin and senior military advisors realized that their initial assumptions about the conflict were incorrect. Washington was intransigent about Moscow’s attempts to negotiate and the ground forces Moscow committed to force Kiev to negotiate were too small.
Surovikin had wide latitude in reorganizing the theatre and streamlining command relationships. Surovikin also had the freedom to implement a defensive plan that maximized stand-off attacks or strike systems, while Russian ground forces grew in size and struck power. The Bakhmut resulted.
Surovikin transformed Bakhmut, when it became apparent that Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zalensky and his cabinet regarded Bakhmut a symbol for Ukrainian resistance against Russian military power. Bakhmut was turned into the graveyard for Ukrainian military power. Surovikin used Zalenskiy’s obsession with Bakhmut in the fall of 2022 to wage a bloody battle for control of the town. Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers were killed in Bakhmut, and many others were injured.
Surovkin’s performance reminds us of the performance of another Russian general: Aleksei Antonov. Surovikin, as the first deputy chief the Soviet general, was the director of strategic plans in Western terms. Antonov, son and grandson imperial Russian officers, was arguing for a defensive approach when Stalin called for a new summer offense in a meeting held in May 1943. Antonov argued that Hitler would attack the Soviet defenses at the Kursk salient if he were allowed to do so, and would waste German resources in doing so.
Stalin, just like Hitler, believed wars could be won by offensive actions, and not defensive ones.
Stalin did not care about Soviet losses. Antonov presented the arguments for the defensive approach in a fearful atmosphere, aware that opposing Stalin would cost him his own life. Stalin, to the surprise of the Marshals Aleksandr Vasilevsky, and Georgy Zhukov who were in attendance, relented on his position and approved Antonov’s operational concept. As historians would say, the rest is history.
The West has admitted that it believes that a frozen conflict , in which the fighting stops but neither side wins, and neither side acknowledges that the war has ended, could be the best long-term solution for NATO. Zelensky supporters do not believe in the mythical Ukrainian victory.
What’s next is the question everyone wants to know.
Washington’s conventional wisdom says that Ukrainian forces should launch a counteroffensive in order to retake Southern Ukraine. Conventional wisdom often focuses on conventions and ignores wisdom. Assuming that Ukraine’s black soil will dry enough to support ground maneuvers before mid-June the Ukrainian forces will attack Russian defenses in multiple directions and regain control of Southern Ukraine by late May or early June. Around 30,000 Ukrainian soldiers who have been training in Great Britain and Germany and other NATO members states will return to Ukraine to form the basis of the Ukrainian counterattack forces.
General Valery Grasimov, the Russian commander in the Ukrainian theatre, is well prepared for the Ukrainian offensive. Russian forces have grown since the middle of 1980s due to partial mobilization.
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The paucity of ammunition to adequately supply a single operational axis makes it unlikely that an offensive by Ukraine involving more than one axe will be able to penetrate Russian defenses. Persistent overhead surveillance makes it nearly impossible for Ukrainian forces to move through the twenty- to twenty-five-kilometer security zone and close with Russian forces before Ukrainian formations take significant losses.
Russia is likely to take over the offensive once Ukraine’s offensive capabilities are exhausted. No reason exists to delay Russian offensive operations. Ukrainian forces have repeatedly demonstrated that paralysis is only temporary. Infrastructure and equipment is repaired. Rebuilding destroyed formations requires manpower. Gerasimov knows that if Russia wants to demilitarize Ukraine, he still has to destroy the remaining Ukrainian ground forces.
Why not negotiate peace with Moscow while Ukraine still has an army and spare the Ukrainian people further bloodletting? Diplomacy is impossible because Washington’s hatred of Russia prevents it from being effective. This hatred is only surpassed by the arrogance displayed by many in the ruling class who have denigrated Russian military power because the U.S. has been fortunate enough to avoid a conflict with a major country since the Korean War. Washington, Paris and Berlin should encourage more sober-minded leaders to urge a change of course.