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Le Figaro newspaper said that the expectations of Ukraine’s allies were high before the Ukrainian counterattack was launched, and when this attack finally began last February, it quickly became clear that the Zaporozhye axis was the most strategic, because it provides access to Sea of Azovand even reach CrimeaWith Russian supply lines cut off.
However, the Russian army, which learned from its failures in Kharkiv and Kherson in 2022, fortified the Surovikin Line, which extends about a thousand kilometers long and at a depth of about 30 kilometers, and by the end of August 2023, the Ukrainian army was never able to penetrate these fortifications decisively, even if Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian forces, Valery Zalughny, frankly admitted that his forces’ attack had reached a “dead end” on November 1, in an interview with the British magazine The Economist.
Impasse
Because of his confidence in the Western training and equipment he had received, Zaloghny expected to launch a maneuver using mechanized brigades, and thus “they would reach the Crimean peninsula, fight there, and return” after 4 months, but the reality was different on the ground, as the front-line soldiers faced extreme difficulties, which led to To stabilize the front line, despite Zaloghny’s fear of getting involved in trench warfare that would make the war continue for years and exhaust the Ukrainian state.
Therefore, the Ukrainian General Staff changed its approach – according to the French newspaper in a report written by Amaury Contansier Bervinkière – to focus on exhausting Russian forces, and focused on targeting ammunition stocks, logistical nodes and armored vehicles with high added value, thanks to the long-range missiles that its allies recently provided it with. Thus, the rate of losses decreased arithmetically, but the territorial gains did not increase.
The newspaper indicated that approximately 20% of the military equipment participating in the fighting by Ukraine was damaged, destroyed, or seized during the first two weeks of the counterattack, which raised concern, and showed that Ukraine’s initial tactical bet was losing, and for 3 months the Ukrainian army failed to… Break through this powerful and meticulously equipped defense.
Impact of the conflict in Gaza
Although Kiev forces broke through the first Russian line at the end of last August, they were unable to exploit this success, due to the presence of two other defensive lines behind it. Nearly 6 months after the start of the counterattack, the Ukrainian army regained only about 400 square kilometers, and did not advance. Only 17 kilometers, and the Sea of Azov, which is the main strategic goal of this operation, is still about 100 kilometers away, and the Russian army still controls most of its positions, and Moscow has even regained the initiative since the beginning of last October.
The newspaper warned that the front had not witnessed any tangible development for more than a year, which means that the long-awaited counterattack, which observers were counting on a lot, did not have the desired effect, and General Zalogny expressed his pessimism in his speech to the Economist magazine.
He said that if there are not rapid positive developments, “we will realize, sooner or later, that we simply do not have enough men to fight,” because Ukraine’s human stock is not as large as that of its enemy.
The newspaper concluded that the emergence of the conflict in Gaza, on which the West’s diplomatic and media attention focused, led to shifting attention to this conflict, and it is expected that the Ukrainian president will confront Volodymyr Zelensky Now there is a stronger enemy than the Winter General, a lack of interest in the battles that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
