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UKRAINE’S SUMMER COUNTEROFFENSIVE began in earnest in the first week of June. This followed months of intense fighting around Bakhmut, where Putin’s forces – led by Yevgeny Prighozhin’s Wagner mercenaries – were halted in a faltering and extremely costly Russian assault in the Donetsk Oblast.
In the aftermath of the savage – but ultimately unsuccessful – Wagner-led offensive around Bakhmut, Prighozin led his mercenaries on a wild advance towards Moscow, halting briefly in Rostov on Don. Prighozin demanded that Putin hand Russian military commander General Valery Gerasimov and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu over to his paramilitaries for summary treatment.
This extraordinary development – falling just short of a coup attempt – happened in late June, just as Ukrainian forces were shaping and developing their counteroffensive against Russian positions. As I predicted at the time, Prighozin’s challenge to Putin’s authority would lead directly to his death just over a week ago.
The aftermath of Prighozin’s challenge to Putin and the subsequent and ongoing purge within the Kremlin and the wider Russian military provides some context for the current progress and prospects for Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
First of all, President Zelenskyy’s counteroffensive has been painfully slow. I use the word ‘painful’ as any gains made by Ukraine have come at a massive human cost. Ukraine does not publish its casualties, but in conventional military operations, the attrition rate among attacking forces is generally higher than that of defending troops in heavily fortified, static positions.
Since June, Ukraine has maintained offensive operations along the entirety of the 1000 km front – from Kherson in the west, with heavy fighting around Robotyne in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Further east, Ukraine continues to mount probing attacks around Bakhmut and is rapidly preparing potential defensive operations in Luhansk and Kharkiv Oblasts – where Putin has concentrated forces for a possible assault on Kupyansk.
Ukraine has made some progress across this extended front. Just recently, Zelenskyy’s forces have managed to cross the Dnipro River, gaining a strategic foothold at Kozachi Laheri – approximately 40km east of Kherson. This is a significant development and the Ukrainian military will seek to consolidate their positions here and exploit advances south along the E97 road network – toward the Black Sea coastline.
Whilst tying up Russian resources in the Kherson Oblast – preventing their diversion to reinforce Zaporhzhzhia – this development also has the potential to split Putin’s forces in the Dnipro delta.
Further east, Ukraine’s forces are reported to have liberated the town of Robotyne. This is a very significant development as it represents a breach of Russia’s second tier of in-depth defences in the strategic Zaporhizhzhia province. Having taken Robotyne, Ukraine will hold the strategic high ground in this area and would be poised to manoeuver south through Novoprokopivka and Tokmak towards Melitipol. This is a distance of less than 100km. If successful in this endeavour, Ukrainian forces would sever Putin’s ‘land corridor’ from Russia’s Rostovskaya Oblast to the Crimean Peninsula.
These advances have come at a very high cost. In the last three months of relentless fighting, a pattern of ground combat has emerged. Ukraine, lacking air superiority, has evolved its own hybrid strategy of battlefield tactics in order to dislodge Russian forces and to re-take Ukrainian territory.
Zelenskyy’s forces have used conventional combined arms tactics against entrenched positions – intense, converged and creeping artillery fire – followed closely by engineers with specialised de-mining systems and intensive mine clearance operations to clear pathways for tanks and infantry mounted in armoured fighting vehicles.
Reminiscent of the tactics of World War 1 – artillery barrages, followed by infantry assaults on enemy trenches – the Ukrainians have the advantage of western supplied Leopard tanks and state of the art combat vehicles such as US supplied Bradley AFVs to manoeuver their infantry into the heart of enemy trench networks.
The Ukrainian military has been forced to mount these assaults with little or no air cover and is vulnerable to Russian counter-battery fire and drone and airstrikes on their troops in the open. To ameliorate these challenges, the Ukrainians have made highly imaginative use of drones to precision-target Putin’s artillery positions, logistics and ammunition dumps and troop concentrations. One of the lessons of this conflict will likely involve the deployment of drones and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to all military formations – organic and integral to all units.
Ukraine has also made significant use of open source intelligence (OSINT) and digital data – often from mobile phone communications among Russian ‘Mobiks’ or mobilised reservists.
With the aid of AI, the Ukrainian military has pioneered the harvesting of such data to identify command and control centres and critical defensive positions for precision targeting.
The re-taking of territory has involved a recurring cycle of frontal, attritional assault as described. Once pathways have been cleared, the leading armoured units – equipped with Leopard tanks and other variants supplied by NATO member states – provide precision or ‘intimate’ fire support to allow the infantry to approach Russian trenches. What happens next is brutal hand-to-hand combat, where Ukrainian troops assault Russian reservists at close quarters, at gunpoint with grenade and bayonet attacks. A great deal of footage of this type of savage combat has made its way onto digital platforms and is widely shared on social media.
September heralds the arrival of autumn and Ukraine will be keen to exploit this emerging ‘gap’ in Putin’s defences in Zaporizhzhia and re-take Melitipol. If Zelenskyy’s forces can reach the Sea of Azov – they will inflict a major defeat on Putin’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine. The window of opportunity for Ukraine to achieve this strategic objective is narrowing with the approach of winter and it is conceivable that this war will rumble on into next spring – making Putin’s ‘3 day war’ a marathon two-year catastrophe.
Putin’s forces have not yet lost the initiative in this war and are concentrating their forces – perhaps as many as 100,000 reservists – for a possible offensive to re-take parts of the Kharkiv Oblast. However, in the aftermath of Prighozin’s assassination – a major purge of Russia’s general staff is underway.
Putin’s much-vaunted General Sergei ‘armageddon’ Surovikin – responsible for war crimes in Syria – has been relieved of his command in Ukraine and is believed to be detained.
Along with these Kremlin figures, several other senior Russian generals have been sacked, disappeared or killed in action. These include General Valery Gerasimov who is said to be ‘resting’ – along with the deputy director of Russian Intelligence, General Vladimir Alexseev, General Vladimir Seliverstov of the 106th Airborne Division, General Ivan Popov of the 58th Army, General Andrey Yudin of the Air Force, General Nikolay Gostev of the 4th Air Force Army and General Mikhail Mizintsev, the ‘Butcher of Mariupol’. General Oleg Toskov was recently killed in action in Ukraine. All of these ‘resting’ or ‘disappeared’ Generals were heavily involved in directing major Russian combat operations – and possible war crimes – throughout Putin’s botched invasion of Ukraine.
Whilst Ukraine continues to endure Putin’s criminal invasion, and whilst it continues to lose thousands of young men and women in combat – their motivation to fight is assured, they are fighting for their very survival. Putin’s mobilised reservists or ‘Mobiks’ will find it difficult to continue fighting and dying for Putin’s increasingly futile vanity project. Their military leadership is in disarray and Prigozhin’s act of defiance – and its aftermath – have seriously undermined Putin’s authority and the ability of his military to deliver an unambiguous ‘victory’ in Ukraine.
To continue this conflict – in the face of unsustainable casualties, along with a possible rout in Zaporizhzhia – Putin will come under increasingly hostile scrutiny from within the Kremlin itself. Yevgeny Prigozhin’s prophetic warning should be noted here – ‘I have to be honest, Russia is on the brink of disaster. If these cogs are not adjusted today, the plane will fall apart in mid-air’.
Dr Tom Clonan is a retired Army Officer and former Lecturer at TU Dublin. He is currently an Independent Senator on the Trinity College Dublin Panel, Seanad Éireann.
Russia is a terrorist state. Its leader is a paranoid autocrat.
Slava Ukraini.
@honey badger: the usual Russian supporters appear to have disappeared.
@brian madden: Do you mean the observers who look at the facts and make comments and who you, and your likes, try to silence by calling us Russian supporters?
You can call us what you like, but here are two facts: 1) Clonan has been not just wrong in his analysis, but his analysis is not objective and
2) Ukranian soldiers (and mercenaries ) are suffering the most appalling losses – losses that you, and your likes, continue to applaud.
@Declan McKenna: do you want Ukraine to win?
@Declan McKenna: Many people who comment here are, unambiguously, supporters of the Russian invasion. Those are the people who applaud the killing of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians.
@Declan McKenna: Losses that the Ukrainians are willing to endure to preserve their freedom.
Attackers are expected to have greater losses than defenders. Documented equipment losses for the Ukrainian offensive shows that the loss russian:Ukrainian loss ratio is at 1.7, i.e. the russians are losing greater amounts of equipment than the Ukrainians, which is remarkable.
But why would you want to see Ukraine and Ukrainians lose their freedom, and be subjected to russia again, a nation that has not only committed genocide against Ukraine many times (e.g. the Holdormor), but so many of its other neighbouring peoples?
@Declan McKenna: when did I try and silence you? You seem very tetchy this morning. A bit of sun might do you good. Have a great Monday xx
@Bill Spill: I want all the killing and destruction to stop. I think you do not understand the reality of the situation. What you or I want is of no importance. It is highly questionable if anyone can win this war, but certainly, Ukraine and its ‘western’ backers cannot win this war. Time will tell.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: Where am I on record as wanting Ukraine to lose its freedom?
@brian madden: Being argumentative is no substitute for objective analysis.
@Declan McKenna: why don’t you call for Russia to retreat and leave Ukrainians land, effectively then the war is over, that is the easiest way to save lives full stop. Remember Russia invaded Ukraine raped and murdered it’s men women and children.. it’s genocide and needs to be stopped with all force necessary
@Declan McKenna: How do you expect the killing to stop?
There are only 2 ways for that to happen
1) russia wins, and Ukrainians lose their freedom
2) Ukrainians continue to fight, and die, to drive the russian from their land
Which do you want to happen?
@Declan McKenna: do you want Russia out of Ukraine?
@Declan McKenna: how would you solve the Russian Ukrainian war???
@Liam23: yes.. he’s gone quiet now.. all Russian bots and Russia would be happy to claim the land they have now and war to end. thats their peace deal. . but that would be just for now till they come back in a few years time for the rest of it.
@Terry Brophy: I will try to respond to many of the comments above. The first issue is that we would have to look at why this war started. We can do that without having to take sides on the issue of military responses. For the record, I am an anti-war advocate.
If we start our analysis with the Russian invasion then there is no prospect of a reasoned, or objective examination. This war did not start without a series of events and interventions – now the issue is, how can it be brought to an end. The considerations of all the antagonists have to be resolved or, I believe, we all face a very dangerous future. The idea that Russia does not have legitimate concerns while all the other parties to the war do have legitimate concerns is ludicrous and dangerous. Wishful thinking or bias or ignorance of the origins of the war cannot get us past that reality. In the end, Ukraine and Russia will negotiate – the sooner the better.
@Joe Mc Dermott: Your arrogance does you no favours. First, you declare that I have been silenced. Then you call me a Russian bot – whatever that is – but, you do that to try to silence me rather than engage with me. You are wrong and unsuccessful on both fronts just as most of your commentary on this war is simplistic and futile.
@Declan McKenna: If we focus in on one of Russia’s legitimate’ concerns which was to protect the persecuted Russian speakers of the Donbas from anti Russian behaviours from Kyiv following the invasion and annexation of Crimea. Well if Putin sent in his forces to ring fence and take back the Donbas he would have some sort of moral argument. But his land grab of Zaporizha and Kherson dispels that myth entirely not to mention the failed attempt to overrun Kyiv. The total and utter subjugation of Ukraine was and is his only goal at any cost.
@Declan McKenna: thats your opinion which you are entitled to. Others form their own opinions from a variety of sources. You appear very judgement and narky on this forum today.
@Declan McKenna: as I expected you did not answer the question. You shoehorn innuendo suggesting Russia had legitimate concerns that in some way justified a mass illegal invasion. The truth is Russia for centuries has been a source of violence and aggression, when not murdering it’s own citizens in the millions it’s targeting it’s neighbours citizens, yet we are to feel sorry for Russia because it’s neighbours so choose to protect themselves via a security assurance club, boo hoo Russia, how about they just stop interfering in its neighbour’s and wider afield. Putin is an extreme russian nationalist, he doesn’t try hide it he is on record as stating Ukraine was in effect for Russia to dominate. So again Declan, should the russian military cease it’s illegal invasion and return to Russia?
@Terry Brophy: To quote you: “You shoehorn innuendo suggesting Russia had legitimate concerns that in some way justified a mass illegal invasion.”
Once again, I did not say or suggest that Russia’s legitimate concerns justified an illegal invasion of Ukraine. They are your ill-considered words, not mine.
When I, or others, state that we have to understand the issues that led to the war, we get accused of being Russian supporters, Putin’s this or that, rather than have our opinions taken into account or indeed, countered on their merit.
It really is time for people to accept that understanding an issue is not necessarily or usually a support for an issue or supporting a response to an issue. What is so hard to understand about that?
@Declan McKenna: all you are doing is defending Russia. Wake up lad
@Declan McKenna: the ‘issue’s’ that led to the war are Putin
@Declan McKenna: What is your solution? You have not put anything forward that is anyway realistic. Russia winning threatens us all. The killing is terrible but history tells us that appeasement to a brutal dictator rarely works.
@Declan McKenna: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing – Edmund Burke – born in Dublin!!
Hopefully the Russian people will realise they are being lied to, as only they can stop Putin.
Blackrock and other companies are making a killing from this war and they have signed deals to rebuild Ukraine when it’s over. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
@Four Aces: Putin has been a remarkably good sales operative for Western arms manufacturers.
@Four Aces: Total lies. What have Blackrock signed? they are not a construction company and don’t invest in sovereign debt. In fact Blackrock are not allowed invest their clients money in any non ESG company and that includes Defence companies. They are not allowed invest in Arm manufactures etc. Do you even know what Blackrock do? I suspect you really don’t
@Four Aces: where is the money supposed to be coming from surely Russia in some sense of the world when it ends should be made pay and no doubt EU will just start buying oil off them again regardless
Ukrainians are getting chewed up. Time for negotiations. Wishful thinking won’t win a war.
@gordon kennedy: Didn’t you get the memo?
russian propagandists were told to switch from “the Ukrainian offensive is failing” to
1) “Ukraine is the most corrupt country in the world”
2) “How life is much better for those Ukrainians under occupation”
3) “African coups, Western colonialism”
Slava Ukraini, Heroyum Slava.
The minefields in front of the 1st set of russian defenses are believed to have been between 5km and 15km deep, depending on terrain.
That takes time to work through.
NATO devised tactics for getting through those minefields simply did not work. Ukraine developed its own techniques to breach those, and now it has been able to reach and penetrate russian lines.
As of this morning, Ukraine has taken the heights between Robotyne and Nonpropokivka.
russia had reportedly moved its elite 76th VDV from Kreminna, on the Luhansk front, to the north of Tokmak, and maybe the 7th VDV from Kherson to somewhere southwest of Robotyne.
It goes against all russian doctrine to use its best forces for defense, indicating it believes their is serious risk in that sector.
That also might create opportunities for Ukraine in both Kherson and on the Luhansk front, although a newly formed, and not yet ready, army (the 24th?) has been put onto the Kharkiv-Luhansk front lines.
On the Velyka Novosilka sector, the command has stated they no longer have the resources to provide any adequate artillery support or counter-battery fire, and are experiencing “extreme physical and psychological stress”.
Ukraine have no choice but to continue Their military and people are the greatest source of courage in a world full of crazies including the loonies on here who believe they should roll over to the Putin supporters and right wing ultras
For those advocating Peace and blaming the West. Wake up. You might as well ask for a cure for cancer or the end of poverty. It is not going to happen for one reason. Putin. Putin is about survival. He would be replaced (which means Death in Russia) within weeks of peace. He set out his justification for the war and has failed on every objective. Nato has been expanded. His enemies are stronger. The Russian Military and economy is weaker. Murderers have been released from Prison and after a few months on the front lines are now roaming the streets. Hundreds of Thousand dead and injured. The grim reality is that he can’t stop now as he can not sell this (even controlling the media) to his audience. He has to continue or he dies. he is committed to war now and there is no off ramp. So there will be no peace for the short to medium term. He is hoping for Trump to abandon the Ukrainian (but that Jan 2025 before he could take office). Which would be a bad Peace for Europe and would also result in future wars. Maybe the Chinese will force him as their economy is tanking. But no sign of the Chinese putting him under pressure. Everyone wants Peace but not going to happen for at least a year.
@Johncjc: Wise words. Well said.
Thanks Tom, great summation of the situation. Let’s hope Ukraine can gain more ground before winter really sets in
Russians should be returned home from every country they are dangerous
Why are the governments not calling for peace talks. This propaganda that war is the only way is stupid . Meanwhile people are getting killed
@BL Music: putin doesn’t want peace. Simple as that.
@BL Music: Peace talks? You mean a tactical pause for the Orcs to regroup, learn from their mistakes and go all in again with much greater numbers. Like any agreement, Budapest, Minsk etc which the Russian’s signed, the Ukrainians know it’s literally as useful as used toilet paper. They know the Russian’s, their modus operandi better than anyone on earth. Was the Russian ambassador and Lavrov spewing their will categorically be no invasion on the 21st February 2022.
I looked at Tom Clonan’s 3 previous cheerleading pieces. They are all about about Ukraine having access to top class NATO training, tactics and weaponry. He doesn’t mention the two critical challenges the Ukraine forces would face – ( 1) Ukraine the absence of air support and air cover and (2) the huge challenge that Russian minefields have presented. He doesn’t mention the problems with training military men in a dozen NATO countries, across different languages and different training regimes and then trying to combine them into a uniform force. He never mentioned all the problems that go along with using a hodgepodge of different weapons. Did it occur to him there’s a reason every army in the world standardizes all its equipment and training? Clonan is making it up as he goes along.
Tom Clonan: stealing a living producing articles like this. His reports have been loaded with military jargon and mumbo-jumbo terms but he had been wrong, wrong, wrong on all the fundamental points. Ukraine losses in manpower and equipment, the inexcusable failure to point out the absence in synergies from multiple equipment sources and training techniques, the war of attrition, the difference between a strategic retreat and holding your ground and taking unsustainable losses. Get off the stage will ya. To be an analyst, you have to actually analyze. Clonan is just a propagandist, and not a vey good one at that.
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