Ukraine to enter 2023 with frail upper hand over Russia

In December 2021, most forecasts voiced in the media did not give Ukraine much of a chance in case of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Ten months after it started on Feb. 24, 2022, experts and media discuss where Ukraine will strike next, and what else Russia can do to save itself from a humiliating ultimate defeat in this war.

In the year 2022, two large militaries clashed in the biggest battle since World War II, involving a mix of modern warfare and brutal trench slaughter.

Despite all odds, Ukraine managed to do the unthinkable, having successfully repelled the initial Russian blitz, then withstanding the bloodletting war of attrition, and then retaking the strategic initiative.

Ukraine has destroyed the myth of Russian invincibility and persuaded the West to fully support its case instead of making yet another deal with the Kremlin. It has forced the “almighty” Russia to go to extremes and — unsuccessfully — adhere to general mobilization, nuclear threats, and overt terror bombing to make Ukraine surrender.

The war enters 2023, with Ukraine having a slight advantage over the greatly degraded Russian military, mainly thanks to the extensive Western military aid. Chances are high that the next months of winter and spring 2023 are going to be decisive for the war’s general outcome.

Ukraine is going to continue with its effort to retake the occupied land via new offensive operations.

And it is likely that the Kremlin, in a bid to save face in the increasingly critical situation, is preparing one more all-out attack upon Ukraine — such as the second massive rush on Kyiv in early 2023.

The failed blitz

In many ways, the war’s outcome was predestined as soon as it became clear that Russia’s all-out grand offensive of February and March had failed.

The monstrously overconfident Russian plan put a stake on a sweeping paralyzing strike coming from multiple axes along a 1,500-kilometer-long contact line. Russia, which had over 100 battalion tactical groups on the ground, went all-in, expecting little to no resistance in Ukraine.

Russia wanted the takeover to be quick and relatively easy, with the main goal to seize Kyiv, all of the country’s key cities and facilities, and then install a Russian-backed puppet government.

Given that Russia never had enough military power for a long and hard war of conquest, a shock-and-awe blitzkrieg was the only realistic way to victory. But it failed. Ukraine managed to sustain the first massive missile strike and retain its armed forces, including air defense, operational and effective.

Ukraine also managed to retain the central government and local authorities, and eluded a societal collapse.

Using the tactics of highly mobile and flexible combat groups, the Ukrainian military managed to inflict devastating losses on numerous vulnerable Russian convoys moving on roads deep into Ukrainian territory.

Then, large Russian forces impeded by poor logistics and Ukrainian ambushes gradually bogged down in hard fighting in the suburbs of Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy, losing time and a lot of resources. From the very beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russia failed to achieve dominance in the air.

To Ukraine, the most attractive and most obvious goal is Melitopol, a city in Zaporizhzhia Oblast which is the key transportation point of the Russian-occupied south and also the gate to Crimea. Another potential target is Svatove, the liberation of which could undermine the Russian military presence in the north of Luhansk Oblast. And one more possibility is Volnovakha, another important railroad communication point between Donetsk and Mariupol.

The Ukrainian command’s choice between these three goals will probably open the year 2023, along with the war of logistics and the challenge of fighting in the winter environment. And then the spring campaign may be decisive for the war’s outcome.

In his recent interview with the Economist, Ukraine’s Chief Commander Valeriy Zaluzhniy suggested that Russia prepares some 200,000 fresh troops for a new large-scale offensive in January, February, or March 2023. From his point of view, this will undoubtedly include yet another massive attack on Kyiv from Belarusian territory.

Therefore, the commander said, the Ukrainian military needs extensive Western military assistance, including hundreds of tanks, vehicles, and artillery pieces, to successfully repel the new attack and regain all territories occupied by Russia after Feb. 24.

According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based defense think tank, Russian President Vladimir Putin may be setting conditions for such an attack in the winter of 2023.

But, according to the group’s report published on Dec. 15, such an attack is “extraordinarily unlikely to succeed.”

The ongoing Russian efforts with brutal fighting near Bakhmut and Avdiivka and massive missile attacks fail to coerce Ukraine into negotiations or concessions. Still, the think tank believes the attack from Belarusian territory is “not imminent at this time.”

Moreover, when it comes to the direct involvement of the Belarusian military – which many have been speculating about recently – the possibility of that remains also “extraordinarily unlikely” in the foreseeable future,” the think tank believes.

“A Belarusian intervention in Ukraine, moreover,” the ISW said, “would not be able to do more than draw Ukrainian ground forces away from other parts of the theater temporarily given the extremely limited effective combat power at Minsk’s disposal.”

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Note from the author:

Hello! My name is Illia Ponomarenko, the guy who wrote this piece for you. 

I hope you found it useful and interesting. I work day and night to bring you quality stories from Ukraine, where Russia is waging the biggest war in Europe since WWII. My little homeland, Donbas, is now the site of the worst fighting. We are helping to keep the world informed about Russian aggression. But I also need help from every one of you — to support Ukrainian wartime journalism by donating to the Kyiv Independent and becoming our patron. Together, we can help bring peace to Ukraine.