Ukrainian leaders are fighting against Russia, but also against high expectations
While much of the world is watching closely the slow progress of Ukraine’s counter-offensive, Ukraine’s leaders are trying to temper expectations by saying the battle to drive out the Russian invaders would inevitably be a hard, bloody slog, not a lightning-fast advance.
“Some people want some kind of Hollywood movie, but things don’t really happen that way,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday, when asked in a BBC interview about the attitude of the Allies supplying Ukraine with weapons.
“We would certainly like to make bigger strides,” he said, according to a BBC transcript, but insisted he remained confident and suggested expectations of quick success were unrealistic. Allies can try to pressure Ukraine, but “with all due respect, nothing will depend on that opinion,” Zelensky told the BBC’s Yalda Hakim. “We will continue on the battlefield in the manner we deem best.”
The counter-offensive in southeastern Ukraine, now entering its third week, has so far recaptured only a few villages in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, with progress often measured in metres, not miles. Ukrainian troops are also trying to advance around the Russian-occupied city of Bakhmut in Donetsk. At the same time, Russian forces have attempted to go on the offensive elsewhere in Donetsk and the Luhansk region, potentially diverting Ukrainian resources.
Military analysts have said it would take weeks or months, not days, to gauge the success of Ukraine’s offensive, warning that the battle would be long and bloody. But anticipation of the operation, including among allies, has increased as Ukraine spent months amassing a powerful arsenal of Western-supplied weapons and training tens of thousands of soldiers for the campaign.
Mr. Zelensky said his government needed to make progress to motivate both its own troops and its foreign backers. Officials in Kiev and some of their supporters abroad worry that if the long-awaited counter-offensive fails to yield significant gains, Western allies could lose patience by pouring billions of dollars into the war and pressure Ukraine into a negotiated settlement that would leave Russia possessing vast tracts of conquered land.
The president’s remarks echoed those of other Ukrainian officials, who had been saying for weeks that the counter-offensive would move slowly — though perhaps not as slowly as it has. Hanna Malyar, a deputy defense minister, said on Tuesday evening that gains so far have been less than some had hoped, but that Ukrainian forces are advancing “in small steps”.
The terrain in southern Ukraine is unforgiving to attackers, with vast open fields and low ground, and Ukrainian troops are encountering stiff resistance from Russian troops. The Russians have had months to build multi-layered defenses – minefields, tank obstacles, trenches, bunkers and gun emplacements – in the areas they occupy.
“Defensively, they know how to hold their own,” said a soldier who fought for Ukraine, who requested that his name be kept confidential for security reasons. He added that Russian entrenchments are often well built.
While Ukraine has not announced losses, analysts have said the attacks on Russian lines are likely to take a heavy toll on Kiev’s armed forces and their newly delivered Western tanks and armored vehicles. Since the Russian invasion in February 2022, Ukraine’s casualties, while heavy, are lower than Russia’s by Western estimates, but going on the offensive generally means more losses.
The Ukrainians, looking for weak points to attack with troops still kept in reserves, struggle to break through the initial defensive lines, with miles to go before reaching the main defensive lines.
“They haven’t deployed a significant portion of their troops yet, so the pace isn’t surprising,” Seth Jones, a defense expert who has focused on the war at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an interview. “If they threw everything in now and the pace was slow, it would be problematic.”
Throughout the war, Russia’s superior fleets of fighter jets and attack helicopters have avoided Ukrainian-controlled airspace for fear of being shot down, but the Ukrainian advance offers them new opportunities.
“This is one of the few times the Russians can deploy air power against exposed Ukrainian forces,” Jones said.
Last September, Ukrainian forces, exploiting an area of Russian weakness, were able to recapture much of the northeastern Kharkiv region with astonishing speed. They advanced at a more measured pace, retaking the southern city of Kherson and adjacent areas in November. But those offensives didn’t have to overcome such a formidable line of defense as the Ukrainians now face, and Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov warned against drawing comparisons.
“It is impossible to expect everything to happen as quickly as with Kharkiv, because the front line is completely different, the terrain and the weather conditions,” he said in an interview this week. with Current Time TV. “Moreover, the Russians had the opportunity to prepare. There is an incredible density of minefields.”
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia presented on Wednesday that Ukraine’s losses contributed to “a certain lull” in the fighting, and expressed certainty of an eventual Russian victory. However, he said Ukraine’s “offensive potential has not yet been exhausted” and that Kiev is considering how and where to deploy its reserves.
His remarks – addressed to a state television reporter on the sidelines of an event at the Kremlin – were the latest example of Putin wanting to project public confidence and underline his insistence that Russia has the resources to survive and outlive Ukraine and the West. to put.
Thomas Gibbons Neff contributed reporting from Kramatorsk, Ukraine, and Anton Trojanovsky from Berlin.