What happened to the Ukrainian counteroffensive?

All through the winter as the war in Ukraine dragged on, optimists in the White House and most of the legacy media continued to assure us that things were looking up for Ukraine. Once the spring thaw came to an end and the ground firmed up enough for heavy military vehicles to traverse, Ukraine would be launching a counteroffensive. We just needed to keep sending endless shipments of cash and military equipment to Zelensky (preferably with some fighter jets and long-range missiles) and he would finally drive the Russian invaders from his country, secure his borders (unlike ours), and save democracy. Near the end of May, we were informed that the Ukrainians were finally ready. The counteroffensive was beginning and victory was in sight. So then what happened? Well, as Yahoo News reports this week, not very much. There were a couple of modest gains in two eastern Oblasts, but beyond that, the counteroffensive appears to have stalled and the Russian defensive lines are holding.

The counteroffensive began about three weeks later, with Ukraine making initial gains in Donetsk and Luhansk, two regions in eastern Ukraine that were illegally annexed by Russia last year.

Since then, however, the pace of progress has slowed considerably, leading to some frustration from Ukraine’s backers in the West, who hoped that the heavy weaponry and training they had provided would drive the Russian occupiers out of the country’s southeastern provinces.

So far, however, Russia’s defensive positions appear to be holding — while questions about the future of the conflict are growing.

That’s putting it charitably. The reality of the counteroffensive thus far has been quite different from the initial projections that were making the rounds. Ukraine waited so long to go on the attack that the Russians had more than adequate time to dig anti-tank ditches and set up fields of landmines. Ukraine has been unable to put a significant dent in Russia’s supply of Ka-52 attack helicopters and they have been pounding the advancing Ukrainian columns mercilessly. It’s estimated that Ukraine lost one-fifth of its tanks and heavy armored vehicles (that we gave them) in just the first two weeks of June.

This month, Gen. Mark Milley finally conceded that things aren’t going well. He described the current situation as being “a very difficult fight” that will likely “take a considerable amount of time and at a high cost.” One military analyst working with Milley admitted that the Ukrainian forces suffer from an “inability to conduct complex combined arms operations at scale.” In other words, they have plenty of heart and they’ve been fighting bravely, but they are not a modern army and don’t have the training required to take on a force like Russia. The Russian army may have turned out to be weaker than we had previously believed, but they are still a fully modern and well-equipped military force.

How much longer are we expected to keep this up? We’re well into the second year of the war and there has been no significant movement in the lines for months. Any suggestions of a negotiated peace deal are shouted down and those bringing up the idea are labeled as “Putin stooges.” All the while, we continue to flush endless resources into a country that is in ruins as we cheer on Ukraine’s forces toward some eventual supposed “victory” that nobody seems to be able to define.

Meanwhile, Russia is making the situation worse not only for Ukraine but for much of the rest of the world now that the grain export deal has gone off the tracks. As The Dispatch pointed out this weekend, any insecurity for the cargo ships in the Black Sea will impact millions of people almost immediately.

Russia’s withdrawal from the initiative, which relied entirely on both sides’ mutual commitment not to attack merchant vessels, is having immediate repercussions. Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned Monday that Russia could no longer guarantee the safety of ships traversing the shipping route. To drive the message home, Russia has carried out several missile and drone attacks targeting Ukraine’s Black Sea ports of Odessa and Chornomorsk since pulling out of the initiative, striking at infrastructure used for grain shipments as well as residential areas.

“Russian terrorists deliberately targeted the infrastructure of the grain agreement,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Telegram Wednesday, “and every Russian missile is a blow not only to Ukraine, but also to everyone in the world who seeks a normal and safe life.”

You can point out how Russia is behaving terribly and what a terrible person Vladimir Putin is until you are blue in the face. Putin doesn’t care. And he’s obviously not planning on stopping this war until he can lay claim to something resembling victory back home. Not only could the Ukrainian forces never successfully invade Russia and take Moscow, but it’s looking increasingly as if they will not be able to drive the Russians out of the territory they now hold.

The linked article from Yahoo News asks the critical question. “How long will Western patience hold?” According to Joe Biden and his supporters, the answer is still “as long as it takes.” This is a completely unacceptable answer. Is anyone really in the mood to see this turn into another Afghanistan and stand by for a decade or more while we empty our own military resources and flush endless money into a stalled military front? If Putin is offered some sort of an off-ramp that his ego will allow him to accept, he’ll take it. Bravery is wonderful, but smart people also recognize a lost cause when they see one. We need to be pushing for a negotiated settlement and put aside this fantasy of Zelensky being some sore of strategic genius.