Heavy rains in Ukraine are bringing the twice yearly rasputitsa, when mud breaks up unpaved tracks and makes many almost impassable; even tanks may be confined to the roads. Vehicle routes become predictable, and more easily targeted by artillery or drone and airstrikes. Snow and ice will follow in December, causing their own problems. Lack of foliage in wooded areas makes concealment from ubiquitous drones difficult, but by the same token, increased cloud cover will impede much aerial reconnaissance. Supplies and ammunition – including artillery shells – will take longer to arrive and will come in smaller quantities.
In short, winter means everything slows down. The Ukrainian style of war, relying on speed and surprise, will lose much of its tempo. And above all, soldiers, like everyone else, focus on keeping warm. General Winter is coming. Russian troops, under new leadership, will attempt to freeze the lines in place and hold them. The Ukrainians, although they have surprised us before, will probably be unable to execute the kind of dashing operations we saw over the last eight months.
Other changes are afoot. Russia’s new unified command structures, under the recently appointed General Sergei Surovikin, seem, at the very least, to have rationalised their chaotic organisation and operations. There are signs of a more coherent approach. This can be seen in Kyiv, with the missile strikes in early October. Earlier in the conflict, Russia’s unfocused attacks – often hitting targets in cities seemingly at random – depleted Russia’s limited arsenal of precision missiles and gained them no strategic or operational advantage.
Now Russia is using Iranian-made – and likely operated – drones against civilian infrastructure, particularly Ukrainian electricity and water supply systems. This is known as countervalue targeting, or hitting important non-military assets. It is a ruthless approach but it is a coherent one, as it aims to reduce an enemy’s will to fight. Unfortunately for Russia, while this works well in theory, history demonstrates that such an approach tends to increase an enemy’s determination for the simple human reason that in war, people will hold their enemies accountable for the miseries they cause.
This is exactly what is likely to happen this winter. In the words of a friend of mine, a resident of Kyiv, “our response is cold hatred, not fear”. Although it is a concern that, while Ukraine manages to shoot down the great majority of the drones and missiles, the price in terms of Ukraine’s own supply of missiles “vastly exceeds Russian costs”. They are expending sophisticated (and expensive) missiles to shoot down what are essentially cheap drones.
Second, in the key campaign around Kherson, the Russian army has its back to the river Dniepro. Kherson has been a priority for both sides, because of its importance as the gateway to Crimea. There are signs that instead of planning a doomed and very costly last stand, Surovikin and his staff have in mind a withdrawal across the Dniepro (400m wide at that point) to the eastern half of the city. This, on the face of it, would be a sensible move – turning the river into a defensive asset for Russian units rather than an obstruction against which they will otherwise be trapped and annihilated.
It is clear Russia is now on the strategic defensive, signalled when Vladimir Putin declared the oblasts of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk part of Russia and implicitly acknowledged the limits of his hitherto disastrous “special operation”. Thus far and no further, he was saying. So there seems to be no question of large-scale new Russian attempts to take land. The Ukrainians are far too strong. In no sector does Russia have significant material or manpower superiority, let alone the three-to-one overmatch traditionally required for a successful attack.
Another factor suggesting the Russians will stay put is that while tens of thousands of mobilised but effectively untrained infantry have alleviated their shortages, these troops will be incapable of the kind of “combined arms” operations (tanks, artillery and infantry working together) we see from Ukrainians. Surovikin, though, is making a virtue out of necessity. The one thing relatively poorly trained but well dug in infantry can do is hold ground, as both sides discovered to their cost in the first world war. Intensive preparations are under way to develop a series of fortified and mine-strewn defensive lines in preparation for Ukraine’s next move.
In a wide-ranging interview in September, Ukraine’s commander- in-chief, General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, said that he saw Russia’s “centre of gravity” – the key to the war – as Crimea. All military indicators strongly suggest that Ukraine’s next offensives will set the peninsula as their objective.
For now, the Russian move towards defensive tactics, coupled with the realities of winter conditions, mean operations will slow down. The Russians are banking on a pause for their ravaged forces while they prepare for next year’s operations. But they will not receive it. Ukraine’s western-supplied artillery and missile systems – which outranges Russian guns – will ensure no respite for the invaders in their trenches, dugouts and commandeered buildings.
Frank Ledwidge is a barrister and former military officer who has served in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is the author of Losing Small Wars and Investment in Blood
