Russia's Futile Avdiivka "Meat" Attacks: "Like Pickett's Charge Every Day"

Pickett's Charge was the culminating Confederate attack of the Battle of Gettysburg in the US Civil War, a futile infantry charge across open ground that resulted in mass casualties for the attackers, and whose failure forever changed the course of the war. 

Russia's brutal losses at Avdiivka are not likely to end this war, but the scale of the losses may signal that Moscow's offensive hopes are over. JL  

James Marson and Daniel Michaels report in the Wall Street Journal:

Kyiv’s course of action is to shift to a defensive posture and force Russia to expend its troops and equipment seeking gains. Ukraine has, to an extent, taken this approach in Avdiivka. “It’s like Pickett’s Charge every day,” a NATO official said of Russia’s futile deployment of forces, likening it to the failed Confederate assault during the Battle of Gettysburg, the turning point in the American Civil War. Ukraine is using long-range missiles to wear down Russian logistics infrastructure including railways, ports and airfields. "As a military strategy in a long war, it makes sense to force the Russians to expend their resources, recapitalize, and return to the offensive later.”

Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Brigade was equipped with Western armored vehicles and trained for a lightning summer counteroffensive that was supposed to tip the war firmly in Kyiv’s favor.

These days, after advancing only a few miles over several months in the south, the brigade is fighting to fend off a Russian attack on a small industrial city in eastern Ukraine.

“It’s tough. Their advantage is in the quantity of people,” said one soldier in the brigade. “They are coming nonstop.”

The brigade’s shift from offense to defense reflects a move to a new phase in the conflict as Ukraine’s top commanders acknowledge that the counteroffensive didn’t achieve the desired progress. Ukraine’s top military officer, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhniy, described the war as a stalemate in an interview with The Economist, saying there would most likely be no significant breakthrough.

Russian officials have characterized the shift as a sign Moscow is gaining the upper hand and that its bet on the long game is paying off. Russian President Vladimir Putin has geared his country’s economy to war and has more than 400,000 men deployed in Ukraine, according to Ukrainian officials, while Kyiv depends on Western military and financial support, which is facing an uncertain future.

A growing number of Ukraine’s backers in Europe and the U.S. say Kyiv likely would be in a stronger position today if the Biden administration had more quickly delivered valuable equipment such as tanks, long-range rockets and jet fighters. Protracted debates about the armaments, which have been provided or are being prepared for delivery to Ukraine, meant Kyiv lost valuable time early this year when it could have pressed gains achieved against Russia late last year.

“There is no silver bullet that will change the stalemate in the short run,” said Douglas Lute, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and former ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. “Our incremental approach to providing military assistance has assured that,” he said of the impasse.

Administration officials say they are giving Ukraine weapons at an appropriate pace and in line with what can be offered.

Russia now controls around one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory and is seeking to advance in the northeast and east. Ukraine is still pressing in the south, where it had hoped to reach the Sea of Azov coast and split the Russian occupying forces in two. But exhaustion on both sides and the strength of defenses make large changes unlikely this winter.

“It’s a trench deadlock,” said a senior Ukrainian security official. “A general offensive is impossible for either side. Neither side can break through.” For now, Russia is concentrating on smaller cities such as Kupyansk in the northeast and Avdiivka in the east. The offensive on Avdiivka, a small industrial city near the occupied regional capital of Donetsk, has cost the Russians more than 100 armored vehicles and thousands of casualties since it was launched last month, according to the Ukrainian military. Russian forces have made small gains in their efforts to surround the city, including seizing a railway line on the northwestern outskirts.

The Ukrainians are struggling, too. The soldier in the 47th said they were low on ammunition and manpower, meaning that the crews of armored vehicles and drone pilots were sometimes deployed to front-line positions.

A senior NATO official said Russia likely lacks resources to mount a significant offensive this year and Ukrainian troops may hold an advantage fighting in winter snow because they have shown greater mobility.

“The Russians have shown limited ability to fight off-road and on foot,” the NATO official said.

The next phase of the war looks increasingly fraught for Ukraine. After fending off Russia’s assault on Kyiv early last year, Ukrainian forces rolled back Russian troops in the northeast and south of the country, retaking half of the territory that Moscow had occupied in the early weeks of its invasion.

While both sides say they want peace, talks are unlikely while Russia retains its initial goal of controlling Ukraine, and Ukraine wants to retake the rest of its territory. Ukrainian officials acknowledge that a long war likely favors Russia, which has shifted its economy to a war footing and can call on a population more than three times the size of its neighbor’s.

Russia has built a drone factory that can produce 1,000 long-range exploding drones a month, according to the senior Ukrainian security official. It is fielding tanks of types first built in the 1950s and 1960s, of which it retains enormous stocks. “It’s not modern but it can move, it can shell, it can cause problems,” the official said.

Ukraine, meanwhile, is dependent on support from the West, led by the U.S., where the Biden administration is struggling to get a new support package through Congress. As well as needing a steady supply of ammunition, particularly for artillery guns, Ukrainian officials say they will need a huge step-up in the type and quantity of equipment to break through Russian defenses, including aerial drones and electronic-warfare systems. Ukraine’s counteroffensive failed largely owing to the strength of Russian defenses, including deep minefields and trench systems along with air superiority and drones to spot and strike targets.

Given the constraints on Ukraine’s ability to seize the battlefield initiative against Russian forces, some outside observers say Kyiv’s safest course of action is to shift to a defensive posture and force Russia to expend its troops and equipment seeking gains. Ukraine has, to an extent, taken this approach in Avdiivka.

“It’s like Pickett’s Charge every day,” the NATO official said of Russia’s apparently futile deployment of forces, likening it to the failed Confederate assault during the Battle of Gettysburg, the turning point in the American Civil War.

 

Ukraine is using long-range missiles provided by the U.S., the U.K. and France to wear down Russian logistics infrastructure including railways, ports and airfields.

“Defending is much easier than attacking,” said Dmitry Gorenburg, an expert on security issues in the former Soviet Union at defense-research organization CNA in Arlington, Va.

The approach could result in small territorial losses for Ukraine, which might lead some people to think Ukraine is on the retreat but could be a safer stance while it rebuilds forces and supplies, he said.

“The optics of Ukraine defending may not be ideal, but as a military strategy in a long war, it may make sense to force the Russians to expend their resources, recapitalize, and then return to the offensive later,” Gorenburg said.