On September 6, 2022, Ukraine initiated its long-anticipated counterattack, aiming to
retake some of the territory that Russia had conquered earlier in the war.
For Ukrainian leadership, this was a matter of time, not a matter of location.
The two potential targets for a counterattack were obvious.
First was Kherson, located in the southern part of the country.
The second was up in the north, toward the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest
city.
It’s well-known that the first phase of the counterattack was very successful, with
Ukraine reclaiming about seven percent of its lost lands.
But why it was successful is the more interesting question.
And the answer will bring more clarity about the chances of future Ukrainian success.
The short story is that Russia basically handcuffed itself, and Ukraine set a trap to take full
advantage of Russia’s self-imposed handicap.
The longer version is that Ukraine still has a war left to fight, but that’s a story
told over six acts.
Act 1: The Targets
Let’s set the scene with where the counterattack could plausibly occur.
Kherson was a desirable Ukrainian pickup and an obvious Russian military vulnerability.
The strategic problem is that Kherson was essentially an island for Russia,
with the Dnipro River surrounding the city and its corresponding region to the east
and the line of control and an increasingly large Ukrainian army to the west.
In the early stages of the war, Russia captured it as a foothold to head toward Odesa—a
plan that ultimately went nowhere.
The other purpose was to further lockdown Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea through
the Dnipro.
But keeping a presence in the city required resupply from the east, which in turn asked
a lot from the bridges that cross the Dnipro River.
More on those in a moment.
Up north, the situation was more straightforward.
Kharkiv is large, with a pre-war population of about 1.4 million.
It was a main target at the beginning of the conflict, forcing its citizens to take shelter
underground
for an extended period of time.
However, Russian troops had been expelled from the area immediately around the city
back in May, though they still held control over areas to the north and the east.
These were valuable because Russia resupplied its forces from Belgorod across the northern
border and used the surrounding Ukrainian cities as distribution hubs.
If Ukraine countered there, they could liberate citizens within the cities and force Moscow
to rethink the war’s logistics.
Act Two: Russia’s Mobilization
From the beginning of the war—err, “special military operation”—Russia has faced a
manpower problem.
Estimates put the combined Russia-loyal forces just north of 200,000.
That sounds like a lot,
but it is a drop in the bucket for a country the size of Ukraine.
It appears that Putin was banking on the idea that Ukrainians would abandon their government
at the first sign of trouble and welcome Russian forces into the country.
Or, at the very least, they’d be indifferent.
That belief was … wrong, which is why Russia had to retreat from the Kyiv front after the
opening month of the war.
Despite all the jokes about the low quality of Russian equipment, the 200,000 soldiers
still punched above their weight because Ukraine was less prepared.
As a result, Russia held a remarkably large front line during the stalemate phase of the
war.
But something was about to change.
Act Three: Enter HIMARS
It appears that Russia made a second major miscalculation.
After years of NATO infighting, Putin reasonably speculated that the alliance would splinter
in its response to the invasion.
Instead, it gave NATO a renewed purpose.
It also united the other countries traditionally within the Western Bloc.
Even the aggressive move to cut off Germany’s access to Russian gas via the Nord Stream
pipeline has not broken the unified front, at least not yet.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s early successes showed Western countries that their struggle was
worth backing.
In the months afterward, western weapons systems flooded into Ukraine.
Artillery systems—especially the vaunted HIMARS launchers—erased Russia’s materiel
advantages.
In the interim, Ukraine had months to train their soldiers and prepare for a counterattack.
Russia’s early advantages—the ones Moscow failed to even exploit fully—were now evaporating.
Act 4: A Bridge (or Three) Too Far
Russia, being on the eastern side of the line of control, has a significant tactical disadvantage.
Ukraine retreated from those areas, selectively destroying key pieces of infrastructure along
the way and generally reducing Russia’s mobility.
Moreover, the situation was about to get worse for Russia in Kherson.
The Antonivskyi Bridge is the only full-size crossing over the Dnipro River and into the
city.
There is a second bridge further east.
This is for rail, which is helpful for bringing in the heaviest of military equipment, such
as tanks.
And if you go way over here, there is a third bridge that would be inconvenient but still
works for resupply if nothing else would be available.
The intelligence is spotty, but it appears that Ukraine spent July and August HIMARSing
the stroganoff out of them.
That’s right—Ukraine has not yet touched Russia’s extremely valuable bridge to Crimea
but has no problem blasting their own.
Although Kherson’s three bridges are still standing, military vehicles cannot pass.
Russia has tried to solve this problem with makeshift pontoon bridges.
But Ukraine is getting intelligence about those too and striking them.
It’s still possible to get things in and out of Kherson.
It’s just slooow.
Act 5: Ukraine’s Trap
It is common for offense and defense have opposing incentives in war.
The defender’s task is to guess where the attack is going to occur and reposition its
resources to counteract it.
The attacker’s task is to guess where the defenders are repositioning and go to the
opposite place.
If at all possible, you want to avoid telegraphing your move.
Whether you are on the offense or the defense, the other side will exploit the intelligence
advantage.
Yet Ukraine forced Russia to move first and give away its strategy.
And it’s all because of bridges.
If Russia placed its troops in Kherson,
there would not be enough time to get them to Kharkiv.
It would just take too long to get back across the river.
Likewise, if Russia started by placing its troops in Kharkiv,
there would not be enough time to get them to cross the river to Kherson.
Placing everything halfway for a flexible response does not work either.
If they would need to go to Kharkiv eventually, they’d be better off stationed there from
the start.
Meanwhile, they still wouldn’t be able to get to Kherson in time.
And splitting up was a recipe for losing more soldiers in action or as POWs.
The combined intelligence of Ukraine and the West meant that they could observe wherever
Russia chose.
They would not have to play the guessing game.
Russia knew that and could bet that Ukraine would attack the unguarded spot.
So Moscow’s forces kept Kherson—presumably the more valuable of the two prizes—well
guarded.
That gave Ukraine free rein in the north.
Russia couldn’t do more than initiate a hasty retreat,
leaving materiel in a manner reminiscent of the failed Kyiv offensive.
Act 6: The Unwritten Act
The impressive start to the counterattack is clearly good news for Ukraine.
Still, the war is not over, and Ukraine is going to face a new set of challenges.
Remember, Russia’s central problem was controlling too much territory without enough soldiers.
In that regard, Ukrainian successes inherently solve Russia’s problems.
The more Ukraine pushes, the less land Russia has to guard.
The retreats begin to concentrate Russian forces.
This assumes that Russia keeps tactically withdrawing.
After all, Russian prisoners of war cannot contribute to the force to territory ratio.
The second problem Ukraine faces is the never-ending march of the calendar.
The beautiful summer months ending give way to a rainy season in the region.
This creates a soupy mud known as rasputitsa,
the sworn enemy of moving vehicles for centuries.
You will recall that this same mud hampered Russia’s initial invasion during the spring
rainy season.
The mud makes it difficult for vehicles to pass through, but it is especially a problem
with tanks.
Although the treads of tanks distribute weight better than the wheels of cars, tanks themselves
are extremely heavy.
Consequently, if one gets stuck, it may require a crane to come in to remove it.
Overall, rasputitsa favors the defender because they can sit and wait for the enemy to come
to them.
This may be why Ukraine opted to initiate its counterattack in September.
Trying to wait another month might not work, depending on the weather patterns.
To be clear, it’s not all good news for Russia.
As Putin is illustrating here with his hands, Russian supply lines are longer than Ukraine’s,
so that part favors Kyiv.
The flipside is that Ukraine’s lightning tactics used to great success in the north
become liable to get bogged down.
As a result, Ukraine could be stuck in a standstill until the winter freezes over the ground.
That all assumes that winter is actually coming, which was never really the case in 2022.
Unseasonably warm winter weather meant that
the ground never reached a true peak freeze, hence the Russian tanks getting stuck.
A repeat in 2023 would create logistical headaches for Ukraine.
On the other hand, a year without winter will alleviate the heating crisis in Germany and
make the western economic front easier to sustain.
In any case, Ukraine’s early attack limits Russia’s ability to militarily and politically
prepare for a decisive battle.
Speaking of political issues, that may be the biggest question mark here.
We have talked before about how a successful Ukrainian counterattack is a catch-22.
If—emphasis on if there—Putin politically owns this war, then a complete Ukrainian victory
may put Putin’s leadership in an untenable position.
Anticipating that, Putin has an incentive to end “special military operation”, call
for a true mobilization, and begin the “war”.
Some version of this appears to be happening,
with Putin ordering 137,000 additional troops in August, set to deploy in January 2023.
But a larger deployment than that may still be necessary to turn the tide.
Whether Ukraine could hold the line under such circumstances remains to be seen.
Wars can have dramatic sways,
like when the North Korean army got all the way here in September 1950,
but were pushed all the way back here just three months later
until a Chinese intervention helped eventually shift things to the modern day border.
Back in the present, China certainly is not going to be intervening here.
But the equivalent of that is massive Russian reinforcements.
There is no guarantee this will be effective, of course.
New Russian troops will take months to train and give Ukraine plenty of lead time to prepare.
In the meanwhile, sanctions will continue to reduce Russia’s industrial output, potentially
leaving the new soldiers with insufficient weaponry.
And that’s assuming Russia’s regime survives long enough to reach that time of deployment.
The mobilization itself might cause enough political instability that Ukraine’s problem
solves itself with the fall of Putin.
The fact that Russia appears to be recruiting out of prisons is not an encouraging sign
for Moscow in that regard.
It is also possible that Putin can still exit a losing war without serious political repercussions.
That is part of the point of calling it a “special military operation”: it’s political
cover.
In addition, Russia has been careful to use mercenaries and recruit soldiers away from
Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
As long as the political power centers stay happy, then Putin’s tenure is fine.
But if he is safe now, a full mobilization would definitely put him in the jackpot if
Russia still fails anyway.
And that is a risk he might not wish to take.
How do you think Russia will respond to Ukraine’s recent successes?
Let me know in the comments.
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