The Ukrainian Offensive: “Team Z” is setting themselves up for failure (again)

According to Kiev, their great spring/summer/fall/winter offensive is “imminent.” Meanwhile, the “pro-Russia” commentators are chortling and dismissing the idea of a Ukrainian offensive… just like they did last time. I think not only are we in for another Ukrainian offensive, we’re in for another hysterical cycle of western bloggers doing their usual cycle of getting hysterical, demanding Putin “take the gloves off,” and panicking in general principle. Today I’ll go over what I’ve seen so far, the steps we can roughly expect from both sides. I consider the liberation of Artemovsk (Bakhmut) as the distinctive end of one phase of the conflict and the beginning of a new one.

Regardless, this is the first offensive in all of history that was announced ahead of time and given a theatrical trailer like the next Harry Potter movie. No I’m not kidding, they actually did this:

I think it’s really weird to have a chant about your sister being raped, but that’s just my opinion.

This is a real tweet by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

I have previously talked about the cyclical “phases” of a military operation and how they played out at various key points over the last 15 months in Ukraine. Of course I use American definitions, but these are fairly universal:

Phase 0 Shape

Phase I Deter

Phase II Seize Initiative

Phase III Dominate

Phase IV Stabilize

Phase V Enable Civil Authority

Phase 0 Shape

These phases are fairly self-explanatory, however I’ll link to two comprehensive stories I’ve written in the past about them.

Winning the information war in Ukraine

The Fourth Phase of Russia’s Special Military Operation Has Begun

Though self-explanatory, these phases are also a bit murky and overlap with one another. Clearly, as the last Ukrainian strongholds in Artemovsk fell, there were clear attempts on both sides to shape the battlefield to their advantage, resetting the conflict back to Phase 0. The massive uptick in Russian missile and drone strikes all across Ukraine shape the battlefield to their advantage, but also deter enemy action, so that’s Phase I accounted for. Phase I of deterring the enemy also bleeds into Phase II, seizing the initiative, which no one has clearly done yet. Most spectators seem to have accepted the idea that Ukrainians will be the ones to seize the initiative for their highly marketed offensive, leaving the Russians mostly just reacting, which is an inherently disadvantageous position to find yourself in. And that’s roughly how the Ukraine’s 2022 autumn offensive played out in the Kharkov and Kherson directions.

I see a lot of self-appointed “experts” in comment feeds saying the Ukrainian attacks over the past few weeks were pointless and a waste of lives. Maybe. But remember what happened last time this pattern developed?

On 31 August 2022 I wrote:

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. Ukraine is doing the military ops they are capable of, and they were trained to do. Professional and well-equipped armies do deep attacks with concentrations of manpower, equipment, and firepower. Ukrainians don’t have the training, coordination, and logistical support for deep attacks, so they compensate with many shallow attacks. This is how ISIS fights, and how ISIS fights. This is how the Taliban fought (who won that war?).

So rather than moan that the Ukrainian offensive was ineffective so far, or a waste of time and lives, consider the reasons why people launch counteroffensives in the first place. A counteroffensive disrupts the enemy’s own offensive, inflicts attrition on their forces, consumes ammunition, fuel, and supplies, and destabilizes the territory they’ve seized from you.

What’s going on in the Kherson offensive?

In that 2022 offensive, Ukrainians attacked along two axes, and this was enough to overstretch the limited Russian forces on the ground and make a significant territorial gain that looks good on a map, good enough to justify more western money and arms shipments.

Bear in mind that, whatever propaganda value the last Ukrainian offensive soap opera had, it completely failed to achieve the only goal that really matters in this war: inflict serious losses on the enemy and degrade their ability to fight. After the big Lyman battle during that offensive I wrote the following:

The game was encirclement, and that’s the theme NATO and neo-nazi propagandists focused on. a town of that size would probably have, at most, 500-1,000 soldiers. As I stated in my previous post linked earlier, the entire Ukrainian force involved in the entire operation probably involved 10,000 or 15,000 soldiers. This would be enough numerical superiority to surround Lyman with enough strength at any one point to beat back Russian attempts to break out. This would also, presumably, be enough to fight off Russian attempts to rescue the garrison. The apparent timeline of the operation? To capture Lyman and all the Russian soldiers in it on 30 September, right as Putin was holding his special ceremony to recognize four independent republics of the former Ukraine.

Naturally, the biggest concern of the week was that NATO would successfully surround a significant number of Russian forces and capture them. With huge numbers of infantry supported by tanks, IFVs (infantry fighting vehicles) and HIMARS launchers, there was no reason for the Ukrainian forces to fail to complete the encirclement. But then… they did fail.

Lyman Debacle: NATO is Really Bad at Maneuver Warfare

However, the situation this time around is completely different. There are a lot more Russians on the ground now, and they’ve had the time to develop significant defense in-depth along at least a portion of the front. It is also very likely they’ve corrected deficiencies that allowed the previous Ukrainian offensives to succeed. RF forces have many more drones in play, more EW assets, and also, possibly, they’ve improved their satellite surveillance. Why do I bring up satellite surveillance? Because when satellite imagery only covers a few hours out of the day, the enemy (especially if they have NATO advisors/leaders, which they do), they can work around those windows when satellites are overhead, and potentially even employ military deception. For example, Mass vehicles along one portion of the front and allow themselves to be photographed there, then drive 18 hours to a completely different region when there’s not satellites watching. If this one Russian deficiency has been corrected or at least improved, that could make it significantly more difficult for Ukrainians to achieve surprise.

Furthermore, though the previous Ukrainian offensive was larger, deeper, and more successful than I and a lot of other people anticipated, it was against a much smaller enemy force standing on mostly open ground. Battalion-sized elements of Ukrainians were able to succeed beyond my expectations largely because they encountered very little opposition. Overwhelming and defeating an entrenched enemy requires much more command and control, and I still think that’s beyond their abilities.

So logically, when the enemy is stronger, more observant and coordinated, it would be sensible for the Ukrainians to plan a more modest offensive this time around, right? Wrong. A smaller offensive would be an obvious sign that their capabilities have deteriorated over the past 6 months and they cannot under any circumstances allow even the perception of that idea being true.

With that principle in mind, I strongly believe we will see the Ukrainian offensive take place along two axes, because that’s what happened last time. One offensive will likely be roughly in the Mariupol direction in the South, because there’s a matching Ukrainian troop concentration, increased activity, and an attack in that direction would threaten Russia’s overland link with Crimea. Here’s a good synopsis I found on YouTube about that direction, as well as the Russian defenses built in apparent anticipation of it:

I think this guy is mostly right. Particularly his point about the Russians’ first line of defense, with the Ukrainian counter-offensives on the outskirts of Artemovsk as an example. Russian troops in the farthest-most positions ingloriously ran away as the Ukrainian tanks approached. But really, and I thought this even at the time it happened, sometimes running away is simply the best option rather than dying on the spot for no reason. As expected, Prigozhin ranted about the whole thing, perhaps emboldening Ukraine/NATO to continue this maneuver… but ran into more Russian positions (and fire support), stalled, and was pushed back with great loss of life. Ukrainians and their NATO handlers have, so far at least, proven inadequate against defense in depth.

But anyway, I did insist there would be two axes. So where would the second axis be?

Consider the increase in Ukrainian activity across the border toward Belgorod. After the first major raid last month I wrote:

The weird Belgorod incident keeps getting weirder. It appears that my initial belief was correct. This was a serious attempt by the USA to overthrow the Russian government, and everybody in the chain of command was completely convinced it would work. Expect more attempts just like this one.

Western media outlets and propagandists (ah, I repeat myself) are treating this incursion, despite the fact that it was destroyed in 6 hours, as a huge victory. There’s no reason to believe that people within the Biden White House don’t also believe this was a huge victory. And just to be clear, this wasn’t a simple raid, and there’s enough video evidence floating around the internet to confirm that. Ukrainian militants entered Russian territory, set up roadblocks, entered houses, and started stockpiling weapons and building defensive positions. That’s not the tactics of someone who’s doing a quick 20 minute adventure. That’s the tactics of someone who believes he’s there to stay.

Bay of Pigs 2.0 in Russia: the USA Suffers From Fatal Scale Error

With some hindsight, it looks like this was indeed a serious attempt to cause an “insurrection” on Russian soil, the initial group was just pushed out faster than NATO planners anticipated, and we are going to see larger attempts moving forward. This is why I think this will be the second axis of the Ukrainian offensive.

Here’s a good video from yesterday summarizing recent events in the Belgorod direction, further cementing my belief that’s the location of Axis #2.

A few last things to consider:

-Massive increases in NATO propaganda and disinformation. I also can’t imagine Tucker Carlson getting canceled was a coincidence. He was the only mainstream voice howling against the war – and no doubt if he still had his show he would be howling about the incursions into Belgorod. Notice how no one else on TV dared even question the idea of directly sending NATO trained troops and weapons in a direct invasion of Russian territory?

-An equally massive decrease in the number of publicly known mercenaries killed in battle. Looking at the casualty listing ons Lost Armour and Track A Merc, they’re no longer being thrown in the Artemovsk direction, and are likely being relocated elsewhere to spearhead an offensive.

-Very few tanks have been destroyed lately, just a few artillery pieces and many pickup trucks and other light, expendable vehicles.

-Not much news about HIMARS, which suggests that the ammunition is being used sparingly to build a sufficient stockpile for an intense offensive operation.

-As for the massive loss of life in and around Artemovsk, I think it is very likely that this was a continuation of the Ukrainian strategy of using lightly-trained and equipped territorial defense troops and avoiding losses among their NATO-trained forces.

That’s all I have for now, please let me know if there’s other news or developments I should consider!

Ian Kummer

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