Minefields and threat: why Ukraine’s pushback is off to a hesitant start
Bradley’s column of armored vehicles rumbled forward, filled with Ukrainian soldiers, bringing a new and powerful American weapon to the war’s southern front.
But then one hit a mine. The explosion blew off one of the vehicle’s bulldozer-like tracks, immobilizing it. The entire Ukrainian column turned and retreated.
Three weeks after launching a counter-offensive critical to Ukraine’s prospects against Russia, the military faces a series of thorny challenges that complicate its plans, even as it wields advanced new weapons supplied by the West. Last but not least, there is a huge swath of minefields protecting Russia’s defense line and creating a killing field for Ukrainian troops advancing into the open steppe of the south.
“Everything is being mined everywhere,” said Lieutenant Ashot Arutiunian, the commander of a drone unit, who watched via drone video link as the mine exploded under the Bradley, halting the column’s advance.
Over the weekend, a mutiny on Russian soil by mercenaries sparked hopes in Ukraine that its army might find it a little easier, even as the uprising quickly died down.
But the Ukrainians still face hurdles that differentiate this campaign from their rapid advance through the Kharkiv region in September and even from the heavier offensive that recaptured Kherson in November.
The terrain in the south-east is mostly flat, open fields, unlike the rolling hills of the Donbas or the heavily forested north, leaving Ukrainian troops without cover. The Russians also dug in in vast trenches for months, making it more difficult to uproot them.
In addition, KA-52 Russian attack helicopters have been able to slip past air defenses, slow down Ukrainian movements and damage or destroy tanks and armored fighting vehicles supplied by the West.
And not only are the minefields larger and more ubiquitous, but Russian forces have proven adept at replenishing some of the minefields cleared by equipment supplied by the West, a senior US military official said.
Ukrainian troops in some locations along the front line are pausing to reassess which breaching and clearing tactics and techniques work best, the official said.
The fierce resistance has taken its toll on Ukrainian weapons. The United States committed 113 Bradley combat vehicles in March. At least 17 of them — more than 15 percent — have so far been damaged or destroyed in the fighting, the official said.
These obstacles have turned the early stages of the counter-offensive into a slow and bloody slog, limiting Ukrainian forces to about four miles of territory they have captured in their furthest advance yet. That’s less than half the distance Ukraine must travel – threatened by mines and relentless Russian artillery bombardment – to reach Russia’s main defense positions.
“They dug in, they mine, they’re done,” said Yevhen, a soldier with a police paramilitary unit who, like some other soldiers, insisted on identifying only his first name and rank. “It’s hard, but there’s no other way.”
Despite the slow progress of the counter-offensive, Ukrainian officials say the main battles to break through Russian defenses are still ahead, and with most of the Ukrainian force still in reserve, it is early to judge success or failure. gauge, they claim.
Mr. Zelensky, while admitting that progress has been “slower than desired”, warned against what he portrayed as unrealistic expectations of a cinematic blitzkrieg through enemy lines.
“Some people think this is a Hollywood movie and are now expecting results,” Zelensky said in an interview with the BBC last week. “What is at stake is human lives,” he said. “We will continue on the battlefield in the manner we deem best.”
In Washington, Biden administration officials are publicly urging patience, even as they privately worry that initial progress is slow. A senior official called the results of the first few weeks “sobering” and added: “They are behind schedule.”
The senior US military official also acknowledged the slower than hoped pace of operations, but added that this was not unexpected given Russia’s extensive defenses, and warned against drawing broad conclusions based on initial operations.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential government assessments.
Ukraine is trying to split the Russian-occupied territory in the south into two zones, cutting supply lines to the Crimean peninsula and creating a springboard for further progress. To do so, it needs to move about 60 miles south from the former front line, where Ukraine halted Russia’s advance in March 2022, to the Sea of Azov.
Russia’s main defenses lie some twelve kilometers behind heavily defended territory. Those are the hardest to cross.
Ukraine’s strategy was to investigate, strike in multiple locations to find a weak point in the defense. Russia, which has been preparing for the attack for months, is trying to slow down Ukrainian forces with mines, artillery, attack helicopters and counterattacks before they can find an opening and send troops through it into occupied territory.
Success for Ukraine now depends on how many tanks, armored vehicles and soldiers it can retain before reaching the primary line of defense and in a battle to break through. Over the winter, Ukraine and Western allies trained and equipped about 40,000 soldiers for the assault.
“How much do they have available at that time?” Michael Koffman, the director of Russia studies at CNA, a research institute in Virginia, said in a telephone interview. “A lot of what we’re seeing so far is inconclusive.”
On two of the three points of attack, south of the town of Velyka Novosilka and the town of Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine has pushed forward little by little and recaptured a total of eight villages. At the third, south of the town of Orikhiv, where the Bradley hit a mine, the attack in the fields seems to have ceased.
Curiously, Ukraine has moved into the two locations where troops received fewer new Western weapons, stopping where the most advanced new weapons – American Bradleys and German Leopard 2 tanks – were deployed.
It’s not clear if that’s because Western weapons were deliberately deployed in areas with stiffer Russian defenses.
Local factors, soldiers fighting in this area said, could explain the slower progress where Western weapons were deployed. The nearest villages, useful for finding abandoned houses, cellars and root cellars for cover, are farther from the front lines than in other locations.
And in the open fields, the artillery bombardment has been so intense, said a drone pilot who regularly flies over the area, that the battlefield “looks like Swiss cheese.”
Even while tempering expectations, Ukrainian officials have maintained that the battle is on track. General Valery Zaluzhny, the commander of the Ukrainian army, released a video this week of him reading through a large map and saying the fight is going “according to plan”.
In the vast fields of southern Ukraine, soldiers who fought at the front or assisted in medical evacuations said they understood the strategy of investigating attacks, and that some would succeed and others would not. But they said the Russian defenses were formidable and progress was slow.
Lieutenant Yaroslav, a medic who evacuated wounded from the fighting, said the wounded described harrowing fighting. “Given what the guys are saying, it’s not going as well as they show on TV,” he said.
On one axis of attack, Ukraine has progressed faster than expected. Soldiers fighting south of the city of Zaporizhia said they had been ordered to advance without Western heavy weapons. After retaking the village of Lobkove, the soldiers found they were close enough to the next village, Piatykhatky, to hear the dogs barking. It wouldn’t be hard to slip over to reclaim it, one soldier said, and that happened last week.
At a Ukrainian line of fire, the artillery officer, a lieutenant named Arseniy, rattled off the types of rounds Ukraine fires: shrapnel for open-air infantry, a delayed detonator for digging into and blowing up bunkers, and grenades filled with pamphlets explaining how to surrender – part of a Ukrainian psychological warfare to tarnish Russian morale.
On a recent morning, after a rain shower had blown over the night before, the gunners prepared a Soviet-legacy howitzer of a type nicknamed the Carnation. The barrel turned. “Firework!” cried a soldier. The gun boomed. Leaves fell from nearby trees.
A few minutes later, an intelligence unit’s artillery team received an interception of Russian two-way radio communications. “Probably two dead,” said a Russian commander. The soldiers were in a cheerful mood.
“It is our usual working day to destroy as much as possible,” said Arseniy.
On the counter-offensive, which he sees through the ebb and flow of orders to fire the gun, he said: “I think things are going according to plan,” but added: “Even if things don’t go according to plan, it is That’s also in our plan.”
The once sleepy country lanes, lined with tall green grass and wildflowers, are now clogged with ambulances exiting the front, their lights flashing. Tracked vehicles rumble along and pick-ups painted in makeshift camouflage, the soldier’s main means of transport, bounce across the tracks.
As dusk turned to night and swallows flew and squawked across the fields, a Ukrainian drone surveillance unit from the 47th Mechanized Brigade went to work.
These early hours of the night are prime time for hunting Russian tanks with infrared cameras, as the bulky metal armor, which heats up in the sun during the day, almost glows in the dark.
“Sunset is our golden age,” said the commander, Lieutenant Arutiunian. The soldiers spot tanks and then call out the coordinates for an artillery team.
“We are testing their defenses,” Lieutenant Arutiunian said. “I wouldn’t call it a full-blown attack yet,” he said. “We are investigating.”
Andrew E. Kramer reported from Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.