The Offensive Before the Offensive. Ukraine Strikes Behind Russian Lines

Ukraine has launched a series of methodical attacks on Russian targets as much as 300 miles behind the front in order to disrupt Russia's ability to supply and reinforce its troops. 

These sorts of preemptive strikes contributed directly to the success of the Kharkiv and Kherson offensives last fall. JL 

Isabel Coles and Daniel Michaels report in the Wall Street Journal:

Strike by pinpoint strike, Ukraine is taking aim at ammunition stores and caches of supplies that Moscow’s forces need to fight, seeking to weaken them ahead of a broader ground campaign. Destroying stores of ammunition, fuel and spare parts can be more significant than taking out individual tanks or artillery pieces, because the impact can be broader. “Every time they have to pull depots back further, it limits the amount that can get to the front because it has to go further in trucks.” 220 Russian military targets (lie) beyond the reach of Kyiv’s Himars but within range of cruise missiles."All are now at risk."

Early this month, four drones attacked a Russian oil refinery almost 300 miles from Ukraine. The next day, another drone hit it. Not long after another drone bombed a fuel depot on the other side of Russia, near Belarus.

Call it the offensive before the offensive. Strike by pinpoint strike, Ukraine is taking aim at ammunition stores and caches of other supplies that Moscow’s forces need to fight, seeking to weaken them ahead of a broader ground campaign to push back the Russian invaders.

Ukrainian leaders say they are waiting for more Western weapons to arrive before launching what has been billed as a “spring offensive” that is now likely to play out over the summer, spearheaded by newly trained units equipped with Western-supplied tanks, armored fighting vehicles and artillery.

To set the stage, Ukraine has stepped up attacks on positions well inside Russian-held territory, part of what strategists call shaping operations, which are aimed at undermining the enemy and probing for gaps to exploit.

 

Ukraine staged similar attacks last year using U.S.-supplied Himars rocket systems before retaking territory in the Kharkiv region and the city of Kherson. Now it is reaching farther, using drones as well as newly supplied British long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles.

For Ukraine, which is battling a larger military, the attacks are important to chip away at Russia’s battlefield resources.

Any engagement longer than a few days becomes a logistical contest, say commanders, so destroying stores of ammunition, fuel and spare parts can be more significant than taking out individual tanks or artillery pieces, because the impact can be broader. A tank without fuel or shells is of little use.

“This is the preparatory stage,” said Oleksandr Kovalenko, an analyst at the Ukrainian Center for Security Studies. “It is about destabilizing and weakening the capabilities of the enemy before the offensive.”

Recent blasts at Russian infrastructure

Infrastructure type

Moscow

Oil

Railroad

May 10

Druzhba pipeline in Sven

BELARUS

May 2

Train derailment in Belye Berega

May 11

Oil depot in Klintsy

May 1

Train derailment in

Unechsky District

RUSSIA

Kyiv

UKRAINE

KAZAKHSTAN

RUSSIAN-

CONTROLLED

Apr. 24 & 27

Oil depot in Rovenki

May 3

Oil storage reservoir in Volna

200 miles

200 km

CRIMEA

May 4 & 5

Oil refinery in Ilsky

Apr. 29

Fuel tank in Sevastopol

Black Sea

Note: Russian-controlled area as of May 15.

Sources: Institute for the Study of War and AEI's Critical Threats Project (Russian-controlled area); Russian state media and official reports compiled by WSJ (blasts)
Emma Brown/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Moscow has blamed Kyiv for the recent spate of attacks targeting fuel storage and distribution networks on Russian soil and in occupied regions of Ukraine. Ukraine hasn’t claimed responsibility for the strikes.

In the most recent attack, a drone dropped explosives on a fuel depot in Russia’s Bryansk region, which borders Belarus and Ukraine, causing damage.

Days earlier, Russian state media said a fire broke out at the Ilsky oil refinery in the Krasnodar region after two days of drone attacks on the facility, which is almost 300 miles from the nearest Ukrainian-held area.

Russia said Ukraine used the Storm Shadow in strikes on the occupied eastern Luhansk region last week. Ukraine didn’t comment on the missile’s use.

“Every time they have to pull depots back further, it limits the amount that can get to the front because it has to go further in trucks,” said Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Recent attacks also include four on Russia’s fuel storage and distribution network on or near the occupied Crimean Peninsula. That fuel is used to power both Russia’s naval fleet at Sevastopol and its forces occupying parts of the southern Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, where analysts predict Kyiv may attempt a breakthrough.

Moscow, meanwhile, is seeking to disrupt Ukraine’s preparations for an offensive. Russian officials said this week they had killed Ukrainian soldiers and destroyed arms depots and Western military systems bound for the front line in missile strikes on the city of Ternopil, hundreds of miles behind the front. Ukraine said civilian buildings—not military targets—were hit.

Russian strikes on the Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad earlier this month hit railroad infrastructure and fuel and ammunition depots that Kyiv had been storing up for an offensive to retake occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia, said Russian-installed regional official Vladimir Rogov.

Ukraine’s recent attacks on Russia’s fuel storage and distribution network will likely force Moscow to adjust its military refueling operations, the U.K.’s Ministry of Defense said. That could include deploying additional protection measures at fuel-storage sites or relying on infrastructure in less threatened regions, it said.

Following an attack on an oil depot in Russia’s Bryansk region, Ukrainian former comedian and TV presenter Serhiy Prytula hinted it had been carried out using drones purchased through a crowdfunding initiative launched by his foundation.

Oleksandra Ustinova, a member of the Ukrainian parliament involved in defense issues, said hitting Russian supplies was critical to battlefield successes last year.

“When we first got Himars we hit their logistics—that is how we got Kherson back,” she said, noting that Russia then had to pull its supplies back more than 50 miles to keep them out of the mobile rocket-launchers’ range.

Extended-range drones and commandos operating in dangerous territories have allowed Ukraine to hit Russian equipment outside the range of Himars rocket systems. Now the addition of European long-range cruise missiles should allow Ukraine to strike even deeper and with greater impunity.

Britain said earlier this month it would give Ukraine an unspecified number of Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which are launched from jet fighters and have a range up to 150 miles and pack a bigger explosive punch than the rockets that Ukraine’s Himars fire.

“This will cause a ‘Himars effect’ on Russian logistics” at distances between 60 and 120 miles from the front line, said Trent Telenko, a former official at the Pentagon’s Defense Contract Management Agency who has studied Russian military logistics.

 

Ukrainian journalists have identified more than 220 Russian military targets beyond the reach of Kyiv’s Himars but within range of the cruise missiles, Telenko said. Their stockpiles include everything troops need, but especially artillery ammunition.

“All of them are now at risk,” he said.

If Moscow is compelled to withdraw vital supplies more than 120 miles from the front, forces within that band will be inside what Telenko called a “sort of logistical desert” and be forced to rely on extended, vulnerable supply lines.

The Storm Shadow cruise missiles can also threaten Russian air and naval bases in occupied Crimea, potentially thwarting Russian efforts to disrupt Ukraine’s offensive, analysts said. As well as lengthening Kyiv’s reach, the missiles carry a far heavier explosive payload than drones can, allowing them to destroy bunkers and fortified targets.

The stealthy missiles also have advanced guidance and targeting systems that allow them to fly low and be routed around Russian air defenses, increasing their chance of hitting targets.