Ukraine’s Slog Prompts Focus on Next Year’s Fight

Ukraine’s current campaign to retake territory occupied by Russian forces could still have many months to run. But military strategists and policy makers across the West are already starting to think about next year’s spring offensive.

The shift reflects a deepening appreciation that, barring a major breakthrough, Ukraine’s fight to eject Russia’s invasion forces is likely to take a long time. 

When Kyiv’s counteroffensive began in spring, optimists hoped Ukrainian troops could replicate their success last year in routing Russian forces. But an initial attempt to use newly supplied Western tanks and armored vehicles to punch through fortified Russian lines stalled.

Since then, progress has been slow and painful, relying on small-unit tactics. A renewed push could still be in the offing. But military leaders and policy makers already are grappling with the question of what can be achieved in the next few months and how to prepare for a protracted conflict.

A nagging concern in Kyiv and Western capitals is that politicians and voters may come to see the war as a quagmire and sour on supporting Ukraine. Even if Kyiv’s Western backers stay resolute, clocks are ticking as Ukrainian forces burn through munitions, manpower and stamina for a grueling fight. 

All military campaigns end at some point—even in wars that grind on for years—at what tacticians call a culmination, or the point when advancing forces can go no further due to success, impediments or lack of supplies.

Kyiv’s goal now is for its current offensive to culminate with sufficient gains to show Ukrainian citizens and backers in Washington, Berlin and elsewhere that their support hasn’t been misplaced—and should continue. 

President Biden at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Lithuania last month told the Ukrainian president and a cheering crowd that U.S. support will remain steadfast. The U.S., NATO allies and Japan pledged to develop long-term security plans for Ukraine. The Pentagon continues to supply Ukraine with advanced weaponry—most recently deadly cluster munitions—and allies are increasing the lethality of what they supply, with weapons such as air-launched cruise missiles.

Senior military leaders, meanwhile, have for months warned that Ukraine’s relatively quick gains of last year wouldn’t easily be repeated. U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley,

Similar caution is now more widespread in the White House, said Ivo Daalder, who was former President Barack Obama’s ambassador to NATO. “I do think there’s a realization in the administration that Ukraine’s not going to be regaining all its territory any time soon,” Daalder said. 

U.S. and other Western officials have hoped that a significant Ukrainian breakthrough could bruise Russian forces enough to bring President Vladimir Putin to a negotiating table as soon as this winter for serious talks about some kind of settlement. Chances of that happening now appear slim, diplomats say. 

Instead, Russia is reinforcing its physical defenses in Ukraine, adding more soldiers and ramping up production of ammunition and weaponry. The West is also cranking up military industries, raising the prospect of a protracted war of attrition.

Fast movement on the battlefield last year and other quick conflicts since the Cold War may have led observers to believe that modern warfare is inevitably speedy, say military specialists. History shows otherwise, with wars averaging from three to seven years with multiple campaign seasons, they say.

“This war could look like the Korean War, with rapid movement on the front line in the early months and then relative stasis—but it takes years for both sides to realize that,” said Dmitry Gorenburg, a Russia expert at the Center for Naval Analyses, a think tank linked to the Pentagon. 

The Korean War, started in 1950, was never settled and technically continues, albeit with an extended armistice. A tense demilitarized zone divides the heavily armed Korean Peninsula. 

Other examples for Ukraine’s future that strategists point to include the Middle East, where Israel has been in conflict with Palestinians and its Arab neighbors since the Jewish state’s creation in 1948, and Northern Ireland, where violent opposition to British rule lasted for generations.

But even if there is no breakthrough this summer, Ukraine can keep fighting well into winter. Rain and snow might slow operations of heavy equipment such as tanks, but Ukrainian forces have proven most effective so far when operating in small units, often with lighter equipment.

“The Ukrainian military continues to adapt faster than the Russian military,” said Gordon “Skip” Davis, a retired U.S. Army major general and former NATO deputy assistant secretary-general.

Ukraine has committed only a portion of its best-trained troops to the offensive, and only some of the more than 60,000 Ukrainian troops trained by NATO militaries have been drilled in complex maneuvers known as combined-arms operations. With time, more Ukrainian troops and commanders will have received advanced Western training.

That training will help them put modern Western equipment to better use. Ukraine’s initial attempts to use European tanks and U.S. troop carriers in the offensive didn’t fare well, but by next spring Kyiv will have both more Western equipment and more skilled operators of the gear.

“As time passes, Ukraine will eventually employ more of its NATO-trained and equipped brigades, while Russia will struggle to maintain its rate of fire and its front-line coherence,” Davis said.

By the middle of next year, Ukraine might also be flying U.S.-made F-16 jet fighters, which European operators of the plane, including Denmark and the Netherlands, are eager to donate. Pressure is mounting on Washington to provide ATACMS long-range ground-launched rockets and on Germany to offer Taurus cruise missiles. 

A big question around F-16s is what weapons the U.S. might allow them to carry. Russia has antiaircraft systems that might hit the planes, raising concerns in Washington that Ukrainian fighters would just get shot down. Equipping them with munitions such as the Joint Standoff Weapon and Paveway precision-guided bombs could allow F-16s to keep a safer distance from the front.

The West might also eventually provide more advanced equipment, like sophisticated drones capable of air attacks. Early this year, U.S. weapons maker General Atomics offered Ukraine two of its Reaper MQ-9 drones for one dollar, an offer normally valued at more than $25 million. Nothing came of the proposal, possibly because of security concerns around classified technology on the robotic aircraft. Reapers can carry Paveway bombs and Hellfire missiles.

Working against Ukraine, in addition to weather, are potentially dwindling supplies of Western munitions and wear on equipment already donated. Cannons and gun barrels can sustain only a finite number of firings before cracking or breaking, and heavy military vehicles require extensive maintenance—even if they’re never in combat.

Russia also continues to reinforce its defenses in Ukraine, including by putting new land mines in some places Ukrainian troops have cleared them.

Strategists looking to next year and beyond hope that over time—even as Russia reinforces impediments to Ukrainian assaults—Ukrainian troops can acquire skills and experience that allow them to outmaneuver and outsmart Russian forces. 

How politicians will view the war next year remains a widespread concern, especially because of the U.S. presidential election next November. Former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, has suggested he would curtail support to Ukraine. 

But many other Republicans continue to endorse U.S. help for Kyiv, including a large number of senators and many in the House, although some support tighter scrutiny of U.S. aid. In votes last month on defense appropriations, five amendments proposed by House Republicans close to Trump that would have cut aid to Ukraine were defeated by wide margins after more than 130 Republicans voted alongside all Democrats in rejecting them.

“I think that bodes extremely well for support,” said Daalder, the former NATO ambassador.

Concern that such support might fade if Trump were to regain the White House increases pressure on Ukraine and its supporters to deliver significant gains in the next campaign season if they aren’t possible this year.

Write to Daniel Michaels at [email protected]