The Ukraine War’s Violent Next Stage

For much of the winter, the war in Ukraine has been a slow-moving but brutal war on a front line 600 miles to the southeast. Now, Ukraine and Russia are ready to attack.

Russia, wary of Ukrainian weapons being supplied from the West, is first.

Using tens of thousands of new troops in hopes of defeating Ukraine, his forces attacked heavily fortified positions across bombed-out fields and through dry forests in the East. They are looking for vulnerabilities, hoping to exploit gaps, and setting the stage for what Ukraine warns could be Moscow’s most ambitious campaign since the start of the war.

Ukraine now has to defend against Russian attacks without spending the resources it needs to attack on its own.

Kyiv is training thousands of its own soldiers outside the country and scrambling to gather heavy weapons and ammunition, ahead of an attack intended to “break the bones” of the Russian army, said Oleksandr Danylyuk, former director of Ukraine’s national security council.

Military analysts said it is likely to try to split the enemy forces into two zones, hoping to smash through the Russian line in the south and put its supply line out of the Crimea in danger.

“There’s no doubt that both sides want to attack,” said Mick Ryan, a retired major general of the Australian army who is a fellow at the Lowy Institute, a think tank, “but it really depends on the capacity of both sides. The sides have to do that.”

Where Russia can attack

Aided by western intelligence, commercial satellites and partisan networks working to undermine the Russian occupation, senior Ukrainian officials say Moscow’s immediate intentions are in focus.

They mustered tens of thousands of soldiers, including conscripts from last fall’s mass mobilization, outside the range of American-made precision missiles. The formation shows that they can prepare to surround the Ukrainian forces that are arranged in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine’s former defense minister, said he expected the Russian army to try to capture Donbas and then “announce the end of a special military operation” and call for negotiations.

However, he noted, this will be the third attempt by Russia to capture the Donbas since the war began; the first two failed.

Britain’s defense intelligence agency said on Tuesday that Russia had been trying to launch a “major offensive operation” since early last month, but was “only able to gain a few hundred meters of territory every week,” due to a lack of ammunition and maneuvering units. .

Ukraine can make a tactical retreat, according to military analysts, as long as it does not risk a total collapse of its lines in a way that would result in its forces being encircled.

Any battle to score a major break through the Ukrainian line will start with even more powerful Russian artillery barrages, bombing by ground-attack jets and sorties by low-flying helicopters, said Serhiy Hrabsky, a former colonel in the Ukrainian army and commentator on the war for the Ukrainian media. That will likely be followed by tanks and infantry land assaults across the buffer zone between the trench lines, he said.

“The main effort will be on the ground, where Russia will use traditional tactics, large concentrations of tanks, armored personnel carriers and very intensive artillery fire,” Mr Hrabsky said.

Russia is seen as wanting to move quickly, with President Vladimir V. Putin pressing the newly appointed commander in Ukraine, General Valery Gerasimov, to seize territory and signal success to domestic and international audiences, after months of embarrassing setbacks.

Russia is facing another time pressure. Western weapons that could make a difference in combat, such as the German-made Leopard tank and the American Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, have been promised but have yet to arrive.

Moscow is watching the Western arms supply announcement, said Mr. Danylyuk, a former national security adviser, and wants “to be sure we can act before we get what we want.”

Where Ukraine can attack

Military analysts and former Ukrainian security officials point to the so-called Russian land bridge – which spans southern Ukraine from the Russian border to the Crimean Peninsula – as the most tempting target for Ukrainian counter-attacks.

Russia also believes it will be the front line, said Nataliya Gumenyuk, spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern military command.

He is bringing in more soldiers to quickly defend defensive positions, but he says Ukraine has been able to limit its ability to bring heavy equipment.

“We can see that they are gathering some equipment around Melitopol and in Crimea, but we can’t get close,” he said in an interview. “They want it, but our forces don’t give them a chance.”

Kyiv hopes the West will quickly provide longer-range artillery that will allow its forces to disrupt Russian positions again, as they did when Ukraine retook southern territory, including the city of Kherson, in November.

The attack was clearly telegraphed. This time, Ukraine wants Russia to estimate where and when to attack.

“Russia is waiting for an active movement from our side in the south,” said Gumenyuk. “We maintain this tension. This is how we destroy the enemy.

A successful attack on the open steppe between the current front line and the Russian-held city of Melitopol, for example, would cut Russian-held territory in Ukraine into two separate zones, greatly complicating Russia’s already strained logistics.

Ukraine, said Mr. Hrabsky, a Ukrainian military analyst, will combine ground attacks with long-range attacks, first softening the defense by firing precision cannons, cannons and rockets at commando bunkers, garrisons and ammunition depots.

It will then seek to break through the Russian lines and maneuver quickly, although Russia is strongly entrenched in the south and will likely put stiff resistance.