Ukraine needs to show decisive results with the weapons and support the West has provided, notwithstanding Ukrainian complaints it needs much more.
Ukraine has gotten a lot of support from the West since Russia invaded. But the support is obviously not a blank check:
For now Western governments trust the Ukrainians to use their growing capabilities wisely and professionally. They can think of no other way to move the war to a satisfactory conclusion. If there are no military breakthroughs then the overall picture does not change but the way forward becomes harder to discern. Ukraine will not suddenly be abandoned but we can expect future support to be less substantial and more geared to keeping Ukraine viable and less geared to victory. The test of the new package is not whether it can add to Russian losses but whether it can make it possible for Ukraine to win.
I've noted that a lot is riding on Ukraine's ability to finally defeat the Russian ground forces and liberate sufficient Ukrainian territory for Ukraine to call it a victory. I believed the Kherson counteroffensive needed to be decisive. It was not decisive as a battle. But it was good enough in liberating territory to keep the West behind Ukraine. The next Ukrainian counteroffensive could be the decisive fight with Western support on the line based on the results.
France supported America after 1775 in order to hurt its rival Britain. It was nice that America reoccupied Boston after the British army withdrew early in the Revolution. It was good that the Americans drove the British back after small victories at Trenton and Princeton. But France didn't provide enough support for America to win until America absorbed and delayed a British offensive from Canada and then defeated the British decisively at Saratoga in 1777.
I heard Douglas Macgregor say Russia will crush the Ukrainians with new manpower equipped with plentiful equipment. I've admitted I worry about that. If I was commanding the Russians I'd try to hold the line with minimal investment--and that was Wagner's role using useless (to Russian society) prisoners as cannon fodder--in order to buy time to build a new army using leadership, equipment, and ammunition stripped and withheld from the weakened front line units. It won't be great but it would be large. And it might be adequate.
But Macgregor seems to base his view on assumptions rather than evidence. Notwithstanding his outstanding combat record in 1991, he often seems ... off ... on issues outside of combat leadership. Maybe he is right. As I said, that's what I'd try to do. And I certainly look for indications that he could be right.
So far I don't think Macgregor is correct. But I am wary of underestimating a foe. And I'm sure Ukraine isn't in as good shape as Ukraine's information operations portray.
Russia lost a lot of men throwing them into the meat grinder at Bakhmut. Ukraine lost far fewer. But the Ukrainian survivors are exhausted. As Ukraine's counteroffensives stalled over the last four months, Russia arguably is regaining the initiative--and possibly the battlefield edge--as Russia gained that precious commodity of time. I worried about this in October:
Ukraine has the initiative southeast of Kharkov and on the Kherson front, but I don't see much in the way of breaking the Russians or taking territory. I worry that Ukraine can't afford to let this stalemate drag on without risking defeat.
I still think Ukraine has the edge, but Ukraine hasn't leveraged that into a battlefield victory. And their edge may have eroded too much.
And that has caused a problem that, while not reaching Macgregor levels of Russian power, may prevent Ukraine from launching an effective counteroffensive. ISW says that Ukraine was cautious in its Kherson front counteroffensive because it worried about vehicle combat losses it could not replace. I'd earlier read speculation that the caution was possibly from heavy casualties. But failures to send weapons to Ukraine in a timely manner was the cause. The result confirms my worry about counteroffensive delays, as ISW states:
The Russians have taken advantage of these delays and failures to benefit from the windows of vulnerability their own defeats and incompetence produced by mobilizing manpower and equipment and starting to rationalize their own forces.
Russia used the time I didn't want them to have. And Ukraine couldn't--or didn't--strike during that period when Russia was most vulnerable. As I said, to win you have to attack.
But if the renewed Russian offensive bleeds Russia's ground forces without achieving decisive battlefield victory over Ukraine's ground forces--even if Russia takes significant territory--Ukraine could have a counteroffensive option that could break the morale of Russian ground forces.
If Ukraine can't achieve that Saratoga-level of victory, Western support for Ukraine might shift to simply helping Ukraine hold the line--with the risks of that kind of nuanced calculations on what is enough--rather than pushing Russia back further. NATO's financial, economic, and military stockpile expenditures might shift away from helping Ukraine win in favor of a ceasefire that actually rescues Russia from the worst costs of its invasion.
The stakes are high. Will that lead Ukraine to be too cautious out of fear of failure? Or possibly too bold in an attempt to achieve victory before it is too late?
UPDATE: Strategypage calms my worries about what Russia can achieve with their newly recruited troops. We'll see. Everything is opaque and some in the West claim Russia can really hammer Ukraine decisively. I've leaned to the side that says Russia will fail hard.
But I don't want to dismiss Russia's ability to learn enough to win. Ukraine hasn't launched a counteroffensive since the autumn, making me worry about its capabilities.
UPDATE: I'll note that is seems as if Ukraine has basically ceased counteroffensive operations in Luhansk, in what I assume is a decision to prepare to absorb a looming Russian offensive.
UPDATE (Wednesday): Here we go:
Russian forces have regained the initiative in Ukraine and have begun their next major offensive in Luhansk Oblast.
Russia is striking first. Never mind that Ukrainian winter counteroffensive, I guess.
Will Ukraine's weary troops blunt this offensive and bleed the Russian ground forces? Hopefully. And perhaps that is the most likely outcome.
But my long-held conviction that you have to attack to win makes me worry. Ukraine isn't attacking. Russia is.
UPDATE (Saturday): I mentioned not long ago that I hadn’t seen reports of Russia using S-300 air defense missiles for ground attacks. ISW reports their use in the most recent barrage on Ukraine’s cities. So they aren’t running out.
NOTE: ISW updates continue here.
