(bomb swooshing)
- [Narrator] After months of brutal fighting
in the country's east,
(bomb blasting)
Ukraine is preparing for its much anticipated
counter-offensive against Russia.
- Dear Warriors,
the main battles are coming soon.
(speaking in foreign language)
(gun shooting)
- [Narrator] Since Ukraine's battle plans are confidential,
little is definitively known
about the coming counter-offensive
but military experts agree the stakes couldn't be higher.
- Everyone's been expecting it, waiting for it.
We dunno exactly when it's going to happen.
We dunno exactly where it's going to happen.
- They've got to look at this counter-offensive
the way a pool shark looks at a pool table.
He's not only trying to sink the ball
but he's also trying to set his cue ball up
for a subsequent shot.
- [Narrator] Here's the situation on the ground right now
and what to expect on the battlefield.
Since the war began in February of 2022,
Russia has focused its offensives almost exclusively
on the east of Ukraine in what's known as the Donbas region.
- The offensive hasn't been particularly successful.
They've lost thousands of troops.
(bomb chinging)
(bombs blasting)
They've been using brutal tactics, shelling,
destroying whole districts.
- [Narrator] After heavy fighting,
the city of Bakmout is now under Russian control,
Moscow's first major conquest since last summer.
Russia now occupies 17% of Ukrainian territory,
a stretch of land mass roughly equivalent
to the size of Iceland.
(bomb blasting)
- But the Ukrainians are still there.
So the moment what we have is
something like a a violent stalemate.
(gun cocking)
- So far, Ukraine's success, (grenade blasting)
and Russia's comparatively
poor performance on the battlefield has surprised analysts.
- The Russians expected Kiev to fall in a few days.
They weren't expecting to fight a war.
They were expecting to be marching in a victory parade.
- [Narrator] Mark Kimmitt
is retired US Army Brigadier General,
who served in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq.
- Very early on, it was clear that the Russian forces
not only did they not have the tactics,
their equipment proved incapable of doing that.
And candidly, the Ukrainians surprised us all
with both their tactical ability
and their equipment as well.
(tanker engine rumbling) (bomb blasting)
- We will never submit to any foreigners or colonizers.
That's why we fight
- [Narrator] From the beginning of the war,
Ukrainian President, Zelenskyy,
made it clear that his aim is to liberate
all Ukrainian territory including Crimea
and parts of Eastern Ukraine
that were first occupied in 2014.
- That seems an unlikely goal for the immediate defensive
(bombs clanging)
(bomb blasting)
because that's a big ask.
That's a lot of Russian troops, you know,
who are well dug in.
- We do not have that much artillery but
we do stay strong because we do have troops on our side.
- Western weapons have been trickling into Ukraine
since the start of the war.
More recently,
there's been a steady escalation of deliveries.
(tanker gun cocking) (gun shooting)
- Its own Soviet stocks have been supplemented
by large supplies of weapons from the West
and these are included long-range
rocket artillery systems called HIMARS.
(bomb blasting)
More recently, you've had the West
has provided battle tanks.
- Hopefully they've got enough armored vehicles
and enough tanks to make that punch
necessary for a counter-offensive.
But most important,
they're going to need the intelligence from drones,
perhaps from satellites,
to get a good idea of the weakest point of the Russian front
because naturally that's where they want to attack
- [Narrator] Ahead of its counter-offensive,
Ukraine has been carrying out drone attacks.
The aim is to weaken the Russians
ahead of the broader ground campaign.
The current frontline stretches 900 miles
from the south of Ukraine all the way around
the east up to the Northeast.
That's roughly the equivalent distance
between New Orleans and Chicago.
- So I don't think anybody, at this point, can predict
the likely attack routes
but they certainly can predict
a number of attack routes that they would use.
- [Narrator] General Kimmitt envisions four likely scenarios
that the Ukrainian forces might attempt
to kick off their counter-offensive.
- Well, I think the first avenue of approach
I think the most obvious counter attack
would be from Kherson over towards the sea of Sea of Azov.
It would have a significant tactical value
because it would cut this land bridge
that is so vital to the Russians
between Crimea and to the rear of the Russian forces,
not only for logistics purposes
but to demonstrate to the world
that the Russians own all that area
between Crimea and Luhansk.
The second likely attack routes would be
from Zaporizhzhia down to Berdyansk.
It has very good roads that make a counter offensive
easier to operate with wheeled
and track vehicles which will be critical to this war.
I think the third attack route
would be through Donetsk down to Mariupol.
It wouldn't have the tactical value
as much of cutting that land bridge
because the land bridge would remain open
between Crimea and a significant amount
of the Russian forces.
But the strategic communications value of retaking Mariupol,
that city where the Ukrainians encountered
probably their biggest defeat,
I don't think you can overstate the value
of retaking Mariupol and getting into the Russian minds
that they have encountered a significant defeat.
The last option, I think that the Ukrainians would have
would be attacking due east from Kharkiv
to right in through Luhansk.
That would have a significant strategic effect
because you now would be on the borders of Russia
and that would be sending a clear message
to the Russian people
that the Ukrainians are able to take back
much of the land that they lost in 2014.
- [Narrator] Despite the Ukrainian's
impressive battlefield record thus far,
Kimmitt is cautious about making optimistic predictions.
(gun shooting)
- I don't believe that the Ukrainians
will be able to achieve a complete routing
of the Russians such that they would withdraw
from both Crimea and the Ukraine.
And candidly, I don't think,
unless there's an absolute collapse of the Russian forces,
that that will happen in the next year.
(taker rumbling)
My major milestone is how deep do they get
into Ukrainian territory.
I'd like to see them get as far as the water.
(gun shooting)
They've got to decisively defeat the Russians
for this to be a successful counter attack.
And it's got to be successful enough
that it will continue to inspire the West
to provide material and equipment
for the next counter attack
and the next counter attack after that
because this certainly will not end the war.
- Ukrainian officials have also
been quite keen to play down the sort of,
the larger aims of the offensive.
They recognize that it's not the case
that they'll suddenly be able to take back
all of Ukrainian Ty just from this offensive.
They see this as one offensive, the next phase in the war.
It's an important offensive,
it's a critical offensive,
but it's not the be all and all.
(soft twinkling music)