Ukraine appears to have few resources to mount another counteroffensive.
The European Union is increasing its military aid from 28 billion euros ($30 billion) over the past two years to 21 billion euros ($23 billion) this year alone, but that is still not enough to replace military aid. of the United States, stalled in Congress.
The Financial Times reported last month that certain US officials had urged Ukraine to act defensively in 2024 and conserve forces for a counteroffensive next year.
“Defensive operations do not necessarily present Ukraine with more opportunities to accumulate materiel and expand reserves,” wrote the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, in a scathing critique of that advice.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hinted that he would appease conservatives with a summit in Switzerland this spring to discuss a peace proposal.
But he also said: “We believe that the right thing to do is to strengthen ourselves on the battlefield… We do not want countries that are not here today, nor at war, to impose any negotiation format or peace formula on us.”
If Ukraine wants to fight for a better negotiating position, many experts consider the offensive to be its only option.
“We are heading towards a war of attrition, which favors Russia,” Vienna-based geopolitical strategist Velina Tchakarova told Al Jazeera.
“Ukraine will launch a military offensive, it is clear,” said Tchakarova, who also predicted the Russian invasion in 2022.
Ukraine has hinted at it.
“We are doing everything possible and impossible to achieve a breakthrough,” Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said last week.
“The 2024 Plan is already there. We don't talk about it publicly. “It is powerful, it is strong, it not only gives hope but will also give results in 2024,” he stated.
Ukraine still aims to restore the borders that Russia recognized in 1991, which means expelling Russian forces from four partially occupied regions – Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson – and also retaking Crimea.
A poll for the Munich Security Conference showed that at least three-quarters of Ukrainians still support all of these goals.
But how will it be done?
Changing tactics, constant strategy.
Last year's counteroffensive strategy was to capture Melitopol and reach the Sea of Azov.
From there, Ukrainian forces could cut off Russia from Crimea by firing on the Kerch Bridge. If successful, the strategy would have saved Crimea, Kherson and most of Zaporizhia, and burdened Russian President Vladimir Putin with enormous political pressure to end the war.
Tchakarova said the 2023 counteroffensive failed because it depended on weapons deliveries from allies.
The Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a think tank, measured that arms commitments in August-October last year were 87 percent lower than during the same period in 2022, the first year of the war.
“This was the decisive factor that did not lead to significant progress on the front,” Tchakarova said.
This year, Ukraine plans to make as many of its own weapons as possible.
“We expect much more [help from allies] if we believe the advertisements: F-16, drones and ammunition,” Tchakarova said. “But I don't expect any serious support,” underlining the wisdom of Ukraine's new approach.
Ukraine's tactics are also evolving.
Last June's counteroffensive relied on mechanized maneuvers and manpower, but its expenditure on weapons and lives proved unsustainable beyond September.
However, around the same time, Ukraine launched a series of ranged attacks that proved more sustainable and, in some ways, more devastating for Russia.
In May it attacked the Kremlin with drones and followed up with more attacks in the heart of Moscow.
That “produced an incredible sense of concern,” Jade McGlynn, a Russia expert in the War Studies department at King's College London, told Al Jazeera.
“They were targeting the entire Ministry of Defense area or the area where the Kremlin elites live, so it was a signal to anyone in that circle that 'not even you are safe.'”
Since then, Ukraine's self-made surface drones and Storm Shadow missiles provided by Britain and France have repeatedly attacked the waters around Crimea, sinking or rendering inoperable half of Russia's Black Sea fleet. Drones and aerial missiles have destroyed Crimean air defenses, aircraft and the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol.
More recently, drones have attacked oil and gas infrastructure in Russia itself, vital to its export revenues. Russian newspaper Kommersant said refineries had to reduce production by four percent in January compared to January 2023, due to damage caused by Ukrainian drones.
Zelenskyy said this month that “our task this year is not only to reinforce our air shield and Ukraine's long-range capabilities to the greatest extent possible, but also to inflict maximum systemic losses on Russia.”
That has been a constant in Ukraine's strategy.
In September 2022, then-commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny said Russia's ability to attack Ukraine with impunity was “the enemy's true center of gravity” and sought long-range weapons to reciprocate the pain.
“It's important for Ukrainians to continue,” McGlynn said. “Unless [Russians] If they feel even a thousandth of what Ukraine feels, they will not feel any responsibility to act against it.”
Ukraine is now perfecting this strategy.
It has said it will build 20,000 drones with a range of hundreds of kilometers, suggesting a devastating expected usage rate of 55 per day, and 1,000 drones with a range of more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) to strike deep inside Russia.
Zelenskyy on Sunday summarized this year's strategic goals.
“We have to show that we can deprive Russia of its air supremacy, its financing of aggression and its political power. This is a task for this year,” Zelenskyy told his allies gathered in Paris.
Tactical and manpower concerns
Ukraine's emphasis on remote warfare appears to go hand in hand with a more conservative use of manpower in 2024.
When ground forces commander Oleksandr Syrskyii replaced Valery Zaluzhny as commander-in-chief this year, there was concern about a return to more costly tactics.
“He belongs to this old Soviet school of thought, which is heavily artillery-driven and more likely to devote mass to the front, which is causing great concern in Ukraine,” Rory Finnin, a Ukrainian historian from the University of Cambridge. .
However, Syrskyii disproved this assumption on February 17, when he withdrew his troops from the nearly surrounded eastern town of Avdiivka. It was a reversal of his tactics in Bakhmut, where he had ordered them to fight with a rearguard for every inch of territory.
“Social media showed that Russia was caught off guard by the fact that Ukrainian forces withdrew,” said retired Col. Seth Krummrich, now vice president of Global Guardian, a security consultancy.
As part of its effort to conserve manpower, Ukraine plans to build one million short-range drones this year, which can drop small bombs with great precision near front lines, a goal that experts have told Al Jazeera. It is feasible.
Such a production rate would average around 20,000 bombs per day and would likely overwhelm Russian volumes. On February 12, Ukraine reported that it had shot down 1,157 Russian short-range drones in one week.
Short-range drones could also be the key to matching the power of artillery, a step Zelenskyy said was necessary before any new counteroffensive.
“We need to get to those moments when we had appropriate operations, counteroffensive actions, when we were [to a ratio of] 1 to 1.5-3. Then we will be able to push back the Russians,” he said at Sunday's press conference.
Putin's chickens
What would be the effect on Russia if Ukraine were successful in its remote war strategy?
Russia has so far managed to avoid many dire predictions.
Despite a mutiny by the Wagner military company last year and numerous anti-war protests, Putin has not been overthrown. The ruble did not collapse. Russia circumvented sanctions to sell oil and buy weapons.
However, some experts believe the effects are building up.
“I think this year will mark the high point of Putin's ability to clearly influence what's happening in Ukraine,” British historian Mark Galeotti told the Futucast podcast last month, predicting that “towards the end of this year… “We will see something very big, very big chickens coming home to roost.”
Galeotti believed those problems include rising household debt, declining public services and disillusionment with Putin: “The system is increasingly vulnerable to the unexpected, and the unexpected could happen tomorrow or five years from now.” ”.
Focus on Crimea?
On Monday, Zelenskyy suggested he could focus directly on Crimea this year.
“We must fight for the full restoration of international law in relation to Crimea,” he said in a statement marking the 10th anniversary of Russia's annexation of the peninsula.
The head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, said last month that attacks on Crimea would intensify, and this month he predicted that “the peninsula will be retaken.”
This has also been a strategic objective since 2022, because Russia maintains five airfields on the peninsula from which it has attacked Ukraine and uses them to support troops in Zaporizhia and Kherson.
Even if it does not retake the Crimean peninsula this year, Ukraine can render it unusable as a Russian base of operations using drones and missiles.
Europe's moment
With US aid stalled, Europe has an opportunity to play a larger geopolitical role, career British diplomat and professor at the University of Cambridge's Center for Geopolitics, Suzanne Raine, told Al Jazeera.
“For many years, the United States has been the first to give us the confidence to do something and, frankly, it's a ridiculous position for all of us to be in,” Raine said.
“If the EU wants to be able to take something seriously, it needs to be able to drive conversations that lead to decisions and actions.”
The EU passed 12 sanctions packages and invited Ukraine to become a member with record speed, but these were low-hanging fruit, Raine said.
“Sanctions are easy and they don't really work. Accession talks are easy as long as they are not allowed to join,” he stated.
Britain has so far been the only European country to eclipse the United States in new weapons categories, offering Ukraine tanks in January 2023, followed by medium-range Storm Shadow missiles in May.
Germany has an equivalent Taurus missile and refuses to ship to Ukraine until the United States approves ATACMS.
Raine said he is waiting for the continent to wake up.
“If not now when?” she said.
