He reckless triumphalism of the first stage gave way to tactics and strategy. The Russian army that advanced like John through his house, falling into all kinds of traps and ambushes that set it back, spent months entrenching itself and building a system of fortifications that could be impregnable. And since a thousand kilometers of frontage is too extensive an area, the blowing up of the dam Kakhovka he created the wall of water on the southwest front that allowed him to send a good part of the forces stationed on the coast of the dnieper to the unfortified points in the north, in addition to reinforcing the troops destined for offensive operations.
These attack actions, in turn, have shown to be better planned than those of the first stage. It is no longer just a question of throwing yourself squarely towards the Ukrainian lines, but of coordinate those advances with the artillery fire that previously crushes the enemy positions, which are also attacked from the air.
The invading army now respects the Ukrainian army, takes it seriously. Underestimating him, his initial plans to conquer Kyv failed, kill Volodymyr Zelensky and his team, and push the borders of Russia to the vicinity of Poland, Hungary and Romania.
That is why the stage that began three weeks ago will be more like a game of chess. The two parties had been preparing for this chapter of the conflict for months, which is different from the previous ones. It was a stalemate on most of the war front, which was used for ammunition resupply and to rethink plans and objectives. During these months of impasse, the war activity was concentrated in a single point: bakhmut.
Control of that city has more psychological than strategic value. In that current replica of Stalingrad, the Ukrainians assigned troops that, like those that heroically resisted in Mariupol entrenched in the Azovstal steel company, had the almost suicidal mission of staying in combat even with the supply lines cut by the Russians. But the invading army invested the minimum number of divisions of its own in the conquest of Bakhmut, because it assigned the Wagner Group to those battles waged street by street and meter by meter, a mercenary force that used tens of thousands of Russian convicts as cannon fodder to exhaust the forces. enemy ammunition.
While the world was looking at that point on the Ukrainian map where the war activity was concentrated, the Ukrainian army was preparing its counteroffensive incorporating divisions of German Leopard tanksAmerican Abraham and British Challenger, and with armored personnel carriers as effective as the Bradleys.
While the Ukrainians prepared their much-announced counteroffensive, the Russians entrenched themselves and built the fortification system that should stop the enemy advance.
Three weeks ago he went from plans to facts. And the first sections of this new chapter show that the Ukrainian counter-offensive was not conceived as a massive wave, but as a trickle at different points of the extensive combat front. They also show Ukraine’s achievements and failures. Among the few successes is progress in Donetskachieving the conquest of about sixty square kilometers around Velyka Novosilka, which includes a handful of villages, to which a few more were added in the following days.
The most visible frustrations were in the Zaporizhzhia region, where Ukraine’s brand new tank divisions were unable to cross the Orikhiv-Tokmak axis line. There, dozens of German Leopard tanks and American Bradley armored vehicles were destroyed, the most powerful and effective weapons Ukraine has for field battles.
The initial trickle of sparse and intermittent attacks seeks to probe the Russian defensive lines, testing the front to establish where the strongest fortifications are located and where the vulnerable flanks are. Theoretically, once the Russian defensive approach is mapped, then the dribbling will intensify until it becomes avalanche.
The beginning of the operation was complicated by the wall of water that the blasting of Kakhovka erected on the southwestern flank, through which the Ukrainian troops destined to occupy the land bridge linking crimea south of Ukraine, to blockade the peninsular territory and also to proceed from there to the eastwith the aim of reclaiming the shores of the Azov Sea.
The Ukrainian fighters are much more motivated than the Russians for the coming battles, but the numerical superiority is on the side of the invading army, which also took note of its mistakes, designing strategies for sneak attacks and building a fortification system that includes extensive plagued territories. of mines and anti-tank barriers.
In the first stages of this new stage of the conflict, there have been no imbalances and it is not clear what the result will be. What is clear is that, for both sides, it is a crucial moment. If the Ukrainians do not achieve conclusive results with their much-heralded counter-offensive, in the Western powers that are investing oceans of money and weapons so that Vladimir Putin is defeatedthe voices that say “enough is enough” and demand to push Zelensky to negotiate a partition of territories with Russia are going to intensify and multiply.
The results of the counter-offensive should be encouraging enough for European and North American societies to continue accepting the costly help that their governments give to the invaded country to defeat the invading army.
The governments most committed to supporting Ukraine need the counter-offensive to yield strong results. Ukraine failure will strengthen Trump and weaken Biden ahead of next year’s presidential elections.
But also the Kremlin has a lot at stake in this instance, which will be a turning point in the conflict. If the demotivation and fatigue of its troops generate visible and massive disbandments, its powerful system of fortifications stretched from the mouth of the Dnieper to the northeast, passing through Zaporizhia, could collapse like a house of cards.
If Putin did not envision that possibility, he would not have deployed atomic missiles in Belarus. His message to Ukraine, Europe and the United States is as clear as it is sinister: Russia’s possibility of defeat is not as NATO members imagine it to be. Before Russian capitulation, there is nuclear hell.
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