It is clear now that there will be no sweeping gains from Ukraine’s counteroffensive. While it has not failed, it has in no way resembled the kind of swashbuckling victory hoped for by optimists. This should be no great surprise. It was always going to be a slog – a series of “bite and hold” operations; more first world war western front than some latterday blitzkrieg. Western officials now fairly bluntly state that there will be no breakthrough of well dug-in Russian lines any time soon. The Ukrainians are also facing a developing threat in the east, as the Russians advance in the direction of Kupiansk, a situation described as “complicated”.
As a result, something of a blame game is being played by both Ukrainians and their allies. The Ukrainians, quite reasonably, point out that rather more in the way of western (for that, read US) equipment might have made a decisive difference. Given that there are thousands of tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery systems currently in US storage and unlikely to make their way east, they have a point. Ukraine’s friends say that if only the Ukrainians had used the “combined arms” tactics in which they were (very briefly) trained, and had deployed their forces differently, more progress could have been made. Of course, the underpinning assumption behind combined arms warfare is that one of the “arms” concerned is air power, which the Ukrainians currently lack. The various re-announcements concerning F-16s heading Ukraine’s way mask the reality that they will not, effectively, be deployed in any numbers until the end of next year. British and US generals and admirals weigh in, with advice such as “starve, stretch and strike” – a catchy phrase, presumably from the same stable of media officers who gave us the vapid “clear, hold and build” slogan in Afghanistan. Ukrainian generals, who, unlike their British or US counterparts, have actually – and quite successfully – fought a conventional war, may be wise to take their own counsel.
