Recently, articles with headlines like “Ukrainian counteroffensive failed” have often appeared in the Western, Russian and some Ukrainian press. I have read most of them and I can say one thing: the authors are either fulfilling a political order, or are simply unable to objectively assess the situation. In fact, our offensive did not fail – and every Ukrainian feels this directly.
The answer to the question about the success or failure of any business, in particular war, depends on the coordinate system, writes Sergei Gromenko for Gazeta.ua. In one case, the achieved results can be compared with our final plans, in the opposite case - with the initial positions. And so, if you were planning to drink coffee on the Yalta embankment this summer, then “the Ukrainian counter-offensive failed,” and there is no way I can convince you otherwise. And if you were hoping to see Ukrainian Abrams on Moscow’s Red Square by the end of the year, I have nothing to tell you. But if you remember well the events of last year, and can compare the then state of Ukraine with today, this text is for you.
Let's start by defining what a “counteroffensive failure” is. In our case, it is more correct to talk about a Ukrainian offensive in the south, rather than a counter-offensive, and although the phrase has already taken root, I will speak correctly. A counteroffensive is a response to enemy action, and this year the Ukrainian Armed Forces conducted a counteroffensive in the Bakhmut area. If you initiate hostilities yourself, then this is an offensive, and this is exactly what is happening in the Zaporozhye direction.
Now we will give advice on “failures”. The minimum failure is when you have wasted a lot of human lives, equipment and ammunition, but have not achieved any improvement in the situation at the front (capturing several tens of square kilometers in the process is not yet success).
The canonical example is the Verdun Meat Grinder of 1916, one of the longest and bloodiest battles in Western history, with more than 300 thousand French and Germans killed over more than 300 days. In our part of Europe, an even worse massacre occurred near Rzhev - there the Soviet command, in a vain attempt to recapture the city from the Germans, killed more than 400 thousand people during 1942 - spring 1943 (German losses were 4-6 times less).
The maximum failure is when troops suffer such a defeat during a counteroffensive that they not only roll back to previous lines, but also retreat far back. Few people remember the “June Offensive” of the Russian army in 1917, when they planned to capture Lviv, but ended up losing Stanislaviv (present-day Ivano-Frankivsk), Ternopil and Chernivtsi. If not for this disaster, the Provisional Government would still have had a chance to hold on, but after it, a left-wing radical coup was only a matter of time.
The Soviet offensives of the spring of 1942 are much better known. Inspired by the recent victory near Moscow, Joseph Stalin ordered plans to push the Wehrmacht back to the borders of the USSR before the end of the year. In May-June, in the Barvenkovo area, Red Army formations first launched an offensive towards Kharkov, then found themselves in a cauldron, and then were destroyed. This Soviet fiasco opened the way for the Germans to the Volga itself that same month. Therefore, the war on the territory of the Soviet Union lasted two years longer.
Was there anything similar during the Ukrainian offensive in the Zaporozhye direction towards Tokmak or on the bridgeheads on the left bank of the Dnieper? Of course, if you expected our tanks to reach Dzhankoy, then the results are frankly disappointing. But it is more correct to look at the relationship not between dreams and reality, but at costs and achievements. Obviously, the data on the Ukrainian deaths is unknown to us, and on the Russian ones they are undifferentiated, so nothing can be said unambiguously here. However, losses in equipment suggest that no disaster occurred. After hopes of a quick mass breakthrough evaporated in July, Ukrainian troops changed tactics, rather than punching Russian defenses head-on (like the Germans at Verdun or the Soviets at Rzhev). Thus, stopping the advance in the south can hardly be called a victory, but it is not a defeat either.
Ultimately, 2023 ended in something of a military draw on land, with Russia winning a pyrrhic victory at Bakhmut and Ukraine retaking certain territories in Zaporozhye and the Kherson region without fatal losses. And the bridgeheads created by the Ukrainian Armed Forces will allow, if necessary, to resume the offensive next year.
However, this is not all. For some reason, most journalists and bloggers, summing up the results of the offensive, remember only the combat operations on land. I won’t lie, the ground front is the most important, but definitely not the only one. At a minimum, the war in the sky and at sea should also be taken into account.
And here the situation is fundamentally different!
At sea, Ukraine continued to effectively destroy the Russian Black Sea Fleet using missiles and sea and air drones. 2023 brought at least two symbolic triumphs similar to the sinking of the cruiser Moskva in the previous year - the defeat of the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and the damage to the submarine Rostov-on-Don during the attack on Sevmorzavod. Ukrainian attacks on Sevastopol and Kerch led to the fact that the Russian fleet was forced to begin relocating to Novorossiysk. The western part of the Black Sea is de facto freed from Russian presence. Enemy missile ships have hardly been firing Caliber missiles into Ukraine for several months now, and the grain corridor is operating without the Kremlin’s consent.
A certain turning point also occurs in the air. Even though Ukraine shot down much fewer Russian planes this year than the previous year, guided bombs are still causing considerable damage to our units at the front. But in the rear of Ukraine the situation is much better than last year.
Just remember how last year, almost the entire winter, it was not the schedule for turning off the lights, but the schedule for turning them on. Ukraine's power grid suffered from almost daily Russian missile attacks. But this year, not a single enemy strike led to similar consequences - and not simply because the Russians ran out of missiles, but because Ukraine closed its skies much more tightly. Well, our drone strikes on Russian territory occurred an order of magnitude more often in 2023.
In short, the Ukrainian naval offensive and air counteroffensive were strikingly successful when compared to the initial strength of both sides. And by all appearances, Ukraine will continue to increase its advantage in these spaces, so that next year will bring us even more sea and air victories.
Thus, although there are still no grounds for triumph, there are no longer grounds for inescapable turmoil. Yes, we have not yet reached the shores of the Sea of Azov, as we had hoped for, but we have not suffered defeat either. And if someone does not see Ukrainian successes in the Black Sea or in the sky, this is a sign of either unprofessionalism or zradophilia (sometimes not even gratuitous).
And although my own optimism regarding victory in 2024 already seems excessive, I have not turned into a pessimist either. Because we didn’t lose the war or even fail the offensive. We just paused. And sometimes a pause is just a pause.
And if you now have a light on in the lamp, there is hot water in the tap and heat in the radiators, then this is because our offensive is much more successful than some still think.
