Ukraine’s much-anticipated counteroffensive against Russia finally began in spring 2023. But it was clear from the start that any hopes of replicating the lightning advance seen in the liberation of Kharkiv or the incredible strategic jiujitsu of Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson were misguided.
While everyone laughed at Russia’s initial efforts to construct fortifications within the areas of Ukraine they occupied at the outset of 2023, by the time summer rolled around, they had built hundreds of kilometers of trenches and other structures. Most crucially, they had spread thousands of anti-vehicle and anti-personnel mines in fields that were sometimes several kilometers deep.
By the time Ukraine began its counteroffensive in June 2023, Russia was well dug in behind multiple defensive lines. Manning those defenses were hundreds of thousands of additional Russian troops mobilized in 2022 and 2023.
One of the first places where Ukraine tried to smash its way through the Russian defenses was near the town of Robotyne. That first attempt was a failure, but through constant pressure—and willingness to accept some heavy losses—Ukraine finally liberated Robotyne in early September. For months, Ukraine pushed south and east from Robotyne, working to break through the next set of defensive lines at Verbove.
Last week, Russia drove Ukrainian forces from Robotyne and recaptured what remains of the village.
Ukraine had been ceding territory around Robotyne since February, when Russia resumed attacks through the area previously liberated by Ukraine. Like so many other locations along the front line, Robotyne was never that important a strategic position. It doesn’t offer any particular geographic factors that give whoever controls it a decided advantage over the surrounding territory. With a prewar population under 500, this is no Bakhmut or Severodonetsk.
But the loss of Robotyne is emblematic of what’s happening all along the front as Ukrainian troops are surrendering ground under relentless pressure from Russian forces.
That’s true in the area northwest of Donetsk along the highway that runs through the much-fought-over town of Avdiivka. Since the fall of Avdiivka in the first week of February, Russian troops have advanced roughly 18 kilometers along the highway. That’s a pace of about 200 meters per day, which isn’t exactly a breakneck advance. However, it’s been relentless. And, as the Deep State map shows, it has been accelerating in recent days.
Shifting north to the area around Bakhmut, Ukraine has so far been able to hold off assaults on the town of Chasiv Yar, but Russia certainly hasn’t given up on taking this high ground. All those little emblems on villages east of Chasiv Yar represent masses of incendiary bombs, artillery strikes, and drone attacks.
Electronic countermeasures have neutralized Ukraine’s use of MLRS
At the outset of the war, there were few weapons Ukraine wanted to procure from Western allies more than the M270 MLRS rocket artillery system and the M982 Excalibur shell. Providing greater range than ordinary artillery, the combination also offers pinpoint targeting.
Or at least, it did.
In March, the House Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation heard expert testimony on this system from the Hudson Institute. And what Dr. Daniel Patt had to say was shocking.
… Excalibur precision artillery rounds initially had a 70% efficiency rate hitting targets when first used in Ukraine. However, after 6 weeks, efficiency declined to only 6% as the Russians adapted their electronic warfare systems to counter.
It appears that this degradation affects more than just the M982 shell.
Patt blames the issue on software inflexibility. Hopefully, the U.S. has teams of programmers addressing this issue right now, because if Ukraine’s MLRS systems are worthless, so are ours.
NATO is training for the war Ukraine is already fighting
Outside of some brave volunteers, Ukrainians have done all the fighting and dying in Ukraine. But the war there is increasingly a test of NATO’s tactics and technology against Russia’s massive numbers of troops and artillery. Throw in a mix of rapidly evolving drones on both sides, and the result is a conflict where no one is quite sure of the best approach.
As The Wall Street Journal reports, NATO might not be preparing to send troops into Ukraine, but it is certainly preparing to face the Russian forces that are dragging this war into its third year. That includes simulating situations in which Russia makes a direct assault on nations that are already members of NATO.
NATO is already finding that it needs to update almost everything, including the way units from different countries fight together. The only time a NATO member state used Article 5 to call on NATO allies for help was when the United States began its assault on Afghanistan. But both there and in Iraq, NATO forces often fought as independent bodies, rarely joining directly in multination actions.
That won’t work if Vladimir Putin extends Russia’s invasion into NATO member countries.
After the Cold War, differences in language, communications systems, and weaponry within NATO mattered little because its troops rarely fought shoulder-to-shoulder. Instead, many rotated through short-term deployments in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, planned long in advance. Equipment needs were clear and each ally handled its own provisioning.
Treating NATO as a genuinely unified force has largely gone away since the collapse of the USSR. The Cold War nightmare of thousands of Soviet tanks tearing through the Fulda Gap is no longer the problem. Instead, it could be waves of drones moving ahead of Russian forces grinding their way into Latvia.
To plan for such possibilities, NATO has launched its biggest exercise since 1988. But as long as Ukraine remains on the outside of the alliance looking in, they can only watch as NATO pretends to carry out a fight that Ukraine is actually mired in.
New Bradleys may be coming, with a big new trick
Dozens of videos have shown U.S.-made Bradley Fighting Vehicles taking out Russian opposition, from the MT-LB armored fighting vehicle …
… to the T-90M tank.
Reports indicate that Bradleys aren’t lasting as long as they might in operation around the front line—not because Russian forces are taking them down, but because not all of them were recently overhauled before being dispatched to Ukraine. But the biggest request from Ukraine when it comes to the Bradley is simple: Send more.
That request is reportedly about to be fulfilled. Not only is the next U.S. shipment to Ukraine expected to contain more Bradleys, but there are reports that Ukraine’s Bradleys are getting an upgrade. As Euromaidan Press reports, the U.S. plans to replace every Bradley in Ukraine with a new M2A4E1 variant.
What could make this especially exciting is that the M2A4E1 includes a system called “Iron Fist Light.” This is an Israeli-made active defense system that was originally designed to protect against missiles and RPGs, but which may also prove effective against the drones now swarming Ukrainian battlefields. If Iron Fist can make a Bradley drone-proof, these vehicles could become an order of magnitude more valuable.
Older versions of the Bradley don’t pack enough power to operate the system. That certainly suggests that one big reason behind the upgrade of these vehicles is getting Iron Fist into the fray.
The U.S. (and Israel) will be extremely interested in the results of this test.
For this video, I’m only including a link. Because the targets shown being taken out aren’t tanks or vehicles that hide their human cargo, but individual Russian soldiers in foxholes and trenches.
What’s interesting—and frightening—about the drone attacks that take these troops out one by one is that they’re not the FPV drones that have become so typical of actions over the past year. Instead, these troops are falling to bombs dropped by drones traveling at high speed, which still manage to hit small targets with incredible precision.
I’ll be surprised if some form of AI isn’t involved in the operation of these drones.
As these results from Thursday show, Russia may be advancing, but it is doing so at tremendous cost. Part of their recklessness likely stems from a desire to capture as much territory as possible before additional American support arrives at the front.
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