Ukraine made “a brutal mistake” and fears an “extremely difficult” situation in the coming months. “The great Russian offensive is on its way”

External pressure and bad decisions brought Ukraine to the current situation. Now, Ukraine’s top military leaders are warning of difficulties. The next few months will be very difficult and Ukraine will only survive if it manages to resolve an impasse that has persisted for over a year

The warning came from the most well-informed man in Ukraine. The leader of the Ukrainian military secret services, Kyrylo Budanov, warned the population that, in the coming months, the situation on the battlefield will become extremely difficult for Ukraine. “In the middle of May, beginning of June”, everything will get worse, but “it will not be the end of the world”. For experts, the signs are clear: we are about to witness a large-scale offensive that will test Ukrainian determination to the maximum.

“Right now, the Russians are not yet focused on conquering ground, but rather on attrition of forces. Ukraine has had a lot of staff burnout. There are a number of Ukrainian military units that are collapsing. The great Russian offensive is undoubtedly on its way. New units have been formed, the big question is where”, says Major General Agostinho Costa.

Since the end of February, with the fall of the industrial city of Avdiivka, Ukraine has had difficulty stopping the advances of Russian forces in the region. One after another, several locations fell to Russian advances. “The situation has deteriorated significantly,” warned the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi.

Near Bakhmut, the scene is no better. Russian forces gathered more than 25,000 soldiers on the outskirts of the small town of Chasiv Yar, in eastern Ukraine, which has become one of the most important bastions of Ukrainian defense in the Donbass region. For the Ukrainians, Chasiv Yar is an almost perfect fortress, but the lack of equipment to counter the constant artillery attacks and aerial bombardment means that Ukraine is holding this territory with a high number of casualties.

O think tank Defense Institute for the Study of War (ISW) also argues that signs that Russia is preparing for a new large-scale offensive are beginning to appear on the ground. ISW analysts emphasize that Kiev’s forces are under enormous pressure, lacking all types of equipment necessary to defend their territory.

“At this point, the advances of Russian forces are increasing the speed of their conquests. The increasingly disadvantageous situation for Kiev is beginning to have an impact on a political level. There are complaints about units that had to retreat due to lack of ammunition and food”, explains General Carlos Branco.

At the same time, the ISW warns that Russia is gradually recovering its capabilities and may even take advantage of the dry weather in southern Ukraine to launch a large-scale offensive operation. Improving weather conditions may allow Moscow to return to using its armored units in less likely regions. Until now, during the winter, Russian armor was restricted to using roads to attack.

From Kharkiv to Odessa

The battlefront remains very active. From Lugansk to Kherson, fighting takes place every day without exception. Although there are signs of gatherings of soldiers at various points along the battlefront, the location and objective established by Moscow remains a major doubt.

Over the past month, Russia has increased the frequency with which it has bombed the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest. The first targets were power plants, followed by communication antennas. Volodymyr Zelensky speaks of a “terror” campaign against the city and its inhabitants, however, several analysts admit that these are preparatory attacks for a new operation.

“The Russians attacked a television antenna that also had radars and allowed communication with nearby areas. We cannot see this in isolation. The Ukrainians must suspect a possible offensive near Kharkiv”, warns Carlos Branco.

But there is no unanimity regarding the chosen direction for the true direction of the attack. On March 20, 2024, the Ministry of Defense made a decision that stunned analysts. Sergei Shoigu announced the creation of the Dnipro River Flotilla, a naval force responsible for operating in a region that separates troops from Moscow and Kiev, in Kherson.

For some experts, the creation of this unit may indicate Russia’s willingness to launch an attack on one of the most important Ukrainian cities: Odessa. The Russian president has already defended it several times and its achievement would mean the economic amputation of Ukraine, removing its access to the sea.

“Conquering Odessa would be a checkmate to Ukraine and the West. It would devalue Ukraine by 60%, surrounding it and removing its access to the sea. The creation of the Dnipre flotilla worries me. I am convinced that the Russians are going to Odessa”, considers Agostinho Costa.

Dig to survive

Furthermore, the powerful KAB1500 bombs used by Russia continue to cause damage and Ukraine does not have a strategy to counterattack them. These munitions with 500 and 1,500 kilos of explosives have devastating effects and are capable of destroying some of the most fortified defensive positions.

Therefore, the last few weeks have been marked by a gigantic effort by Ukraine to dig the ground, entrench itself and stop the Russian offensive. Ukrainian commanders have struggled to oversee the construction of new defensive lines.

Trenches, bunkers, tank obstacles, dragon teeth and extensive minefields. The strategy is very similar to that put into practice by Moscow on the eve of the summer 2023 counteroffensive by Kiev. However, experts admit that Ukraine is too late in building these structures and that, if Russia attacks, these defenses risk not being as solid as the Russian ones. Furthermore, according to experts, Ukraine does not have secondary defensive lines capable enough to face the Russian attack.

“Ukraine is far behind in the effort to entrench. Ukraine doesn’t have good secondary defensive lines,” says Michael Kofman, a defense expert at the Carnegie Endowment.

Last summer, Ukraine threw all its hopes into a counteroffensive towards Zaporizhzhia, in an attempt to break through the Russian defensive lines. In the months leading up to the attack, the West trained tens of thousands of soldiers and sent hundreds of armored vehicles and millions of munitions. However, the offensive ended in failure, with Ukrainian units trapped between Russian minefields and powerful artillery barrages.

These attacks led to Kiev suffering a significant loss of soldiers in several units and losing much of the material it needs to defend its territory. The real numbers are not yet known, but according to official US sources who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity they were “significant”. Military experts believe that Ukraine never recovered.

“Ukraine made a brutal mistake last summer. However, it’s not just their fault. They were pressured to do something that would not occur to a Western military planner: carry out an offensive action without air cover”, recalls Major General Isidro de Morais Pereira.

A “game-changer”

But many of the problems experienced on the ground by Ukrainian forces can now be resolved with the approval of the new US military support package. After more than six months of a struggle in the lower house of the American Congress, between Republicans and Democrats, the United States of America approved a new aid package worth one billion dollars.

HIMARS ammunition, including the longer-range ATACMS version, Javelin anti-tank missiles, anti-tank mines, anti-aircraft defense missiles, Bradley armored infantry vehicles and many ammunition of various calibers. This was the first aid package sent after the approval of the document and, according to the Pentagon spokesperson, it should start arriving in record time.

Of all the weapons announced, the military highlights the ATACMS missiles. Ukraine had been asking for them to be sent for a long time, but the Biden administration refused to send them, out of fear that they would be used against Russian territory. The ability to hit targets almost 300 kilometers away will make many Russian installations vulnerable to Ukrainian attacks.

“Russia believed that the US would not approve the support package for Ukraine. If this were to happen it would lead to a high probability of success for a Russian offensive. However, I believe that ATACMS will have a very big impact. Everything that is a command post, radars, military airfields, concentrations of troops and weapons, railway bridges will be targets for Ukraine”, highlights Isidro de Morais Pereira.

At the same time, both Ukraine and a number of European countries continue to increase production of all types of military equipment needed at the front. Among Ukrainian leaders there is a growing sense of urgency to increase military production. Russia recorded an “unprecedented” production increase to rearm its army, after a wave of initial failures in the first year of the invasion. Currently, the Russian war machine is capable of producing ten times more ammunition than Ukraine has available.

Some weapons are more difficult to produce in your own country. An example of this is the crucial 155 mm ammunition used by NATO countries. Ukraine has converted almost all of its artillery, originally from the Soviet 152 mm caliber, to the caliber used by the allies, in order to ensure that it can operate the equipment sent by the West. The production of these ammunition is limited by the import of raw materials and the purchase of production rights from Western companies.

The biggest problem

But two years of non-stop fighting continue to wear down the most important resource Kiev has: its soldiers.

“Two years without rotation, it is clear that morale is low and this is killing our motivation. We need to be rotated or have vacation to rest properly”, reveals a Ukrainian soldier to the Financial Times.

Ukraine is trying to solve its troop shortage problems by tightening recruitment measures, but has not set a number of men who could be called to serve in a future mobilization. Last year, Zelensky suggested it would be necessary to mobilize half a million troops, but this year Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi admitted that number would likely be significantly lower.

Among the measures recently approved by the Ukrainian parliament is the decision not to renew Ukrainian passports abroad for men aged between 18 and 60. According to the BBC, more than 650,000 Ukrainian men have fled the country illegally since the start of the conflict. According to the Financial Times, this leaves Ukraine with just 3.7 million men capable of being called up to serve in the army.

“The problem now is staffing. Ukraine will recruit, but a military unit cannot be prepared in three months. A soldier can be prepared in three months, a unit is something else. This war is taking a huge toll on Ukraine. Russia rotates its forces very frequently”, highlights Agostinho Costa.