Ukraine Changes War Tactic To One That Will Cause It More Losses

 

moon of alabama

After a month of failed attempts to reach the Russian defense lines the Ukrainian side is stuck. Its forces are unable to even cross the security zone in front of the Russian lines. The long promoted counter-offensive, launched to to pressure from Washington and NATO, has undoubtedly failed. As it has caused enormous losses with no substantial gains the Ukrainian army is now changing its tactic.

Yesterday the secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, tweeted in English and Russian:

At this stage of active hostilities, Ukraine’s Defense Forces are fulfilling the number one task – the maximum destruction of manpower, equipment, fuel depots, military vehicles, command posts, artillery and air defense forces of the russian army. The last few days have been particularly fruitful. Now the war of destruction is equal to the war of kilometers. More destroyed means more liberated. The more effective the former, the more the latter. We are acting calmly, wisely, step by step.

bigger

Overnight the Ukrainian army fired more missiles on Donetz city and into the Belgograd and Kursk regions of Russia.

Attritional warfare is of course what Russia has practiced over the last twelve month by systematically destroying Ukrainian forces, especially artillery and weapon supplies along the front line as well as deep within the Ukraine. When both sides commit to attrition warfare, like in World War I, the side with more resources will usually win. In this conflict that side is without doubt the Russian one.

The Ukrainian leadership is in deep denial of this fact:

Clash Report @clashreport - 9:12 UTC · Jul 5, 2023

Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the Ground Forces of Ukraine:

The counteroffensive is going according to plan. The command assures that Bakhmut will be liberated, and the losses of the Russians are 8-10 times higher than the Ukrainian ones.

During the last months the Russian side fired ten times more artillery ammunition than the Ukrainian. Russia also wages a dedicated counter-battery mission that is killing Ukrainian artillery systems.

In modern warfare artillery is causing about three quarter of all losses. The real number of killed and wounded on the Ukrainian side is thereby about 10 times higher than on the Russian side. The first time I wrote about this was in May 2022. The theme continued to December and more recently.

Syrsky will likely know this but he has to lie to not push his troops morale below its freezing point.

For real attrition warfare the Ukrainian army would have to retreat to well build defense lines and to then try to hold off whatever the Russians decide to through at them. There is no sign yet that Ukraine is doing that.

Posted by b on July 5, 2023 at 11:54 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/07/ukraine-changes-wartactic-to-one-that-will-cause-it-more-losses.html