Ukraine is faltering in its offensive due to Russia's advantage in air power and artillery.

 

A Ukrainian serviceman on patrol. Wall Street Journal/AP.

Ukraine's summer offensive is faltering due to Russia's advantage in air power and artillery. Wall Street Journal. Ukrainian forces have had trouble getting past well prepared Russian defenses and minefields. But it is artillery and air power that are causing many casualties among the Ukrainian and blunting their offensive.  Helicopters are proving critical as even the British Intelligence Service admits that the Russians have an advantage. Helicopters are proving critical as they can fire from far beyond Ukraine's now limited air defenses. Russia has deployed 20 additional helicopters to the Southern region currently under attack. Near Bakhmut the Ukrainian offensive has also faltered after some early gains with most fighting dying down. Russia is also targeting Ukrainian cities to keep their air defenses tied down and depleted. All in all, Ukraine has not even reached, let alone penetrated, Russia's main line of defense. 

My Comment:

This isn't anything that new if you have been following the war in Ukraine at all this year. Ukraine has recently run out of short range air defenses and have been at an artillery disadvantage since the start of the war. What is new is that the news media is now admitting it. I believe this is an attempt to reduce the shock when the Ukrainian offensive fails. 

Though it seems clear that Ukraine is failing in their offensive, the real question is how badly. I have seen unconfirmed reports that an entire attack battalion was destroyed yesterday. Supposedly the battalion was destroyed near Orekhovo, due to good conditions for drone and helicopter attacks. I can't confirm that but if it is true then things are even worse than the Wall Street Journal admits. 

The West has never seemed to publicly admit Russia's strategy in this war, which was attritional warfare. Russia has used waves of cheap drones and missiles to drain Ukraine's air defenses. Many people were puzzled why Russian air power seemed so inept in the early parts of the war, and this is why. They wanted to grind down these defenses and now that they have done so they are starting to deploy their helicopters to massive effect. 

From what I understand it's the KA-52 Alligator that is doing much of the damage. These attack helicopters are fairly effective and unlike many other Russian helicopters they are able to attack Ukrainian armor from long range. Ukraine has been so far unable to counter these helicopter attacks and from what I understand they casualties the helicopters have suffered is light. 

A Russian KA-52 "Alligator". Alex Beltyukov.

With even the western media admitting that the Ukrainian offensive is faltering, what happens next? In a sane world the Ukrainians would call the offensive off and prepare for defensive warfare but that's not what is happening. Instead, NATO and America seems to be doubling down, trying to give Ukraine even more weapons even though it's pretty clear that we don't have the weapons to give them anymore. Indeed, we converted most of our anti-air units to conventional vehicles years ago, and without mobile air support Ukraine simply can't go on the offensive without massive casualties and little chance of success. 

But the west has put so much into this war that their credibility is on the line. If they fail then they lose any hope of being taken seriously by China and other global foes. Unfortunately for them they have essentially run out of options that include arming and training Ukrainian troops, it's clear that won't work. My real fear is that they will become so desperate that they will use nuclear weapons...