Ukraine has certainly not gotten all that it needs to fight Russia. Nobody ever has everything it needs to fight an enemy--including time. Zelensky wants a commander who will use what he has to win rather than catalog the reasons he can't attack now.
Zelensky responded to a question from Italian outlet Rai News about reports that he may intend to replace Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi by stating that he is considering changing multiple “state leaders” and emphasized that this effort involves replacing multiple unspecified individuals, not just “a single person.” Zelensky emphasized the importance of Ukrainian morale, as the Ukrainian leadership “cannot be discouraged” and must maintain the “right positive energy” in order to win the war.
Until Zelensky fired his CINC last week. As ISW noted, this is normal in war.
President Zelensky needs his very own General Grant:
In a possibly apocryphal tale, Republican politician and newspaper editor Alexander McClure reported that after he argued for Grant’s removal, Lincoln told him, “I can’t spare this man. He fights.” Real or not, the line has endured, largely because it so aptly captures why the president valued Grant. “Many Union generals temporized and put off battles until their troops were better trained and equipped,” says Chernow. “Grant recognized that such delays would benefit equally his Confederate opponents and preferred to strike quickly and capitalize on the element of surprise even when his troops weren’t perfectly ready.”
President Lincoln went through a series of generals leading the Army of the Potomac who failed to go after the Confederate enemy as much as they prepared to go after the Confederate enemy.
I believe the major factor in the failure of Ukraine's 2023 summer counteroffensive is that Ukraine waited far too long preparing for their counteroffensive--which gave Russia's shattered ground forces time to recover from their nadir in the fall of 2022, build defenses and minefields in the south, and gird themselves to hold the line:
I don't remember if I ever wrote about this, but I had in mind reading a book in my youth by a former German general who wrote about the World War II eastern front. He said that it was always better to counter-attack Russian advances quickly with whatever could be scraped together. Waiting to gather forces just gave the Russians time to dig in. Delay was asking for defeat. He was talking about tactical operations. But if you look at the 1943 German Kursk offensive you see the same thing on a larger scale. Apparently little has changed in 80 years.
In the end, building up and defensive attrition victories only set the stage to win. To win the war you have to attack and destroy your enemy in battle. Remaining on the defensive just grants your enemy the initiative to conduct a winning offensive.
To be fair, attacking soon would have been daunting given the apparent inability to gather a strategic reserve:
In the fall of 2022 I wanted to see a large Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south following on the smaller offensive victories on the Kharkiv and Kherson fronts. I worried that failure would grant Russia time to recover from the bloodletting Putin forced his ground forces to endure. But as Churchill discovered in 1940 when he asked where the French strategic reserve was, Ukraine had no strategic reserve to inflict that blow on a seemingly reeling Russian army that had yet to dig in and lay minefields.
While I can't say it would have worked, in retrospect it would have been better to risk thinning out Ukrainian lines in the Donbas in order to create a reserve to exploit Russia's weakened state in the late fall our early winter rather than wait for newly recruited soldiers to get trained on refurmished Soviet and new Western weaponry. Conditions aren't static. Russia recovered more than Ukraine prepared.
It's too late to fully digest my 1990s warning about the dangers of being overly worried about limiting your own casualties:
Our soldiers' lives are indeed valuable, and our country's insistence that we minimize risks to them is laudable (as well as being necessary due to the small size of the Army). Undue concern, however, is false compassion and, as was the case for Iraq in 1980, could result in even greater casualties in a prolonged war should we refuse - because of the prospect of battle deaths - to seize an opportunity for early victory.
But things can always get worse if the war drags on even longer. Who will be the Ukrainian general who can attack with the ability to recognize an opportunity to assure his president he will "fight it out on this line even if it takes all summer" knowing that even high casualties that win the war sooner will be better than a lower rate of casualties extending into the future.
UPDATE (Wednesday): A Ukrainian military observer stated:
Russian forces are attempting to implement Soviet deep battle theory for operational planning to rapidly break through Ukrainian defenses but are failing to achieve the effects of Soviet deep battle operations.
A weakened Ukrainian army would be vulnerable to that if the Russians improve their performance.
But it is also interesting because we keep getting told that a war of attrition is something that Russia will naturally win. If that is the winning strategy and if Russia can keep this up all decade, why risk victory by changing strategy?
The fact is, Russia is not destined to win because it is much larger than Ukraine. Assuming America and its allies can provide enough support to Ukraine.
UPDATE (Friday): Russian forces continue to make advance into and around Avdiivka. I heard one potential pocket was evacuated by the Ukrainians.
I suspect that reports of an elite Ukrainian unit--3rd Assault Brigade--going to the city is not to hold it but to shield a withdrawal. It may be counter-attacking the northern pincer of Russia's assault. Which if successful could blunt any Russian pursuit of withdrawing Ukrainian troops to new defensive lines.
I've worried about the city's defenders getting cut off, so I support a withdrawal. I'm not for it because of Ukrainian casualties as long as Russia is suffering more. After all, it's not like the Russians will stop attacking after the Ukrainian pull back to non-urban defensive lines west of the city.
UPDATE (Friday): I've long worried that Russia would cut off Ukrainian troops in the Avdiivka salient. But even weakened Ukrainian forces have prevented Russia from achieving that:
The Russian offensive effort to capture Avdiivka underscores the Russian military’s inability to conduct a successful operational envelopment or encirclement in Ukraine.
In retrospect, my fears early in the war that Russia could encircle the entire Donbas region were not based on reality notwithstanding my appreciation of Russian military weakness. Although to be fair, Russia's initial heavy losses trying to mount a parade through Ukraine may have erased abilities to conduct an operational encirclement.
UPDATE (Saturday): Here we go:
Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi stated early in the morning Ukrainian time on February 17 that he ordered Ukrainian forces within Avdiivka to withdraw to more favorable defensive positions in order to avoid encirclement and save the lives of Ukrainian personnel.
I guess my worries were right.
UPDATE (Saturday): Russia's looming conquest of Avdiivka was done without the frontal assaults through the city that have been the signature move of the Russian army capturing other cities.
Russia has taken heavy casualties moving around the flanks to leverage the Ukrainians out of the narrowing salient. Until I see evidence to the contrary, I assume the old ways would have been costlier.
And ISW notes what I speculated yesterday:
Ukrainian forces may have to stabilize the frontline by counterattacking in the area where Russian forces are trying to close the encirclement of Ukrainian forces in Avdiivka in order to conduct an orderly withdrawal.
UPDATE (Saturday): Ukraine has lost Avdiivka. Some Ukrainian troops were captured by pursuing Russian troops. But there was no large body of troops captured in any encirclements.
I'd think this city is a prime spot to plant lots of explosives in the ruins of the city in order to set them off and smash up the Russian troops taking the city.
UPDATE (Saturday): If Ukraine had pulled back any air defenses prior to pulling out the lighter forces holding the line, it might explain this surge of Russian air power:
Russian forces appear to have temporarily established limited and localized air superiority and were able to provide ground troops with close air support during the final days of their offensive operation to capture Avdiivka, likely the first time that Russian forces have done so in Ukraine.
NOTE: ISW updates continue here. Also, I put war-related links and commentary in the Weekend Data Dump.
NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.
