Six months of war: Ukraine regains the initiative, but makes no big push
Western allies seem to have provided Ukraine enough assistance to deprive Russia of victory but not to defeat it, so the two countries are likely to be at war for a long time
After six months of war, Russia has failed to overrun Ukraine, install a puppet government in Kyiv, or even fully conquer Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts in the east - its pared-back goal.
Ukraine’s battlefield successes also forced it to lift a Black Sea blockade of Ukrainian food exports, bringing the assaulted country as much as $30bn this year.
On the other hand, Ukraine is also seemingly unable to score a decisive victory as it defines it – the reconquest of all the territory Russia has seized since 2014, when it recognised Luhansk and Donetsk as independent republics and annexed the Crimea.
Offensive, Redeployment, Counterattack
Ukraine has overmatched expectations in all three main
phases of this war. During the first month, Russia attempted a blitzkrieg offensive that likely aimed to capture Kiyv, the eastern half of the country and the southern littoral, decapitating the government, cutting off Ukraine’s access to the sea and seizing most of its sources of mineral wealth.
Ukraine devastated Russian supply lines with Javelin missiles, bogging down the entire offensive. It brought down Russian helicopters and fighter jets with Stinger missiles, depriving the invaders of command of the air. Three days into the war, Ukraine estimated that Russia had lost 4,500 men, 150 tanks, 700 APCs, seven fighter jets and 26 helicopters.
On March 25 Russia announced it was redeploying its forces to the east and refocusing on capturing the Donetsk and Luhansk districts. Ukraine took advantage of the lull to reclaim territory in the north. By May 4, Ukrainian and Russian reports agreed that a Ukrainian counteroffensive north and east of Kharkiv had pushed Russian troops 40km back from the city in a second major Ukrainian success.
On April 18 Russia’s eastern offensive began in earnest, and during May and June, Ukraine’s worst months, Russia succeeded in capturing the northwestern corner of Luhansk it didn’t already control, and settlements in Donetsk.
Yet Ukraine still exacted such a cost that Russia again had to lower its sights. It gave up on a grand pincer movement that would bite off the entire east from Izyum to Mariupol.
“The Russians are using a special tactic to avoid the disaster they suffered in Kiyv,” says Lt.-Gen. Konstantinos Loukopoulos, who has taught tank warfare at military academies in Moscow and Kiev. “Massive artillery fire, destruction, reconnaissances-in-force to discover the size and arrangement of Ukrainian forces, followed by outflanking. That’s why they’re going so slowly.”
A Royal United Services Institute report researched on the front lines in June found that Russia was firing 20,000 shells a day to Ukraine’s 6,000, keeping defenders under such a cannonade as to render counterattack impossible. The cities of Severdonetsk and Lysychansk fell on June 24 and July 3 after being pummelled so hard, Ukrainian officials said there were almost no structures left in which forces could take cover.
The arrival in Ukraine of high-precision rocket artillery systems with 80km range on June 23 disrupted Russia’s war of attrition in the east. By targeting Russian ammunition depots far behind the front lines Ukraine thinned out Russian supplies and decimated its forces. Ukraine’s defence ministry estimates the Russian dead at over 45,000. Russian forces have failed to overrun new settlements in the past two weeks with the exception of Pisky.
Even this apparent stalemate in the east is no small achievement for a country with a third of Russia’s population and an 18th of its GDP. But Ukraine is promising a counteroffensive in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, where sustained counterattacks have destroyed Russian command bunkers and ammunition depots deep in Russian-held territory. In August Ukraine knocked out of action half of Russia’s naval aviation strength in the occupied Crimea.
“By going on the offensive, which they’ve done, Ukraine has regained the initiative and can strike at a time and place of their choosing instead of just waiting for the Russians to attack,” Lt.-Gen. Mark Hertling told CNN on August 21. “Russia now realises that they have to defend in more places, which further drains their forces from the fight.”
Is a Ukrainian counteroffensive coming?
Despite this strategy of “corrosion”, as Brig.-Gen. Mick Ryan has called it, military and political experts tell Al Jazeera that mounting a strategic counteroffensive in the south is still a difficult proposition.
Ukrainian strategy is partly dictated by weapons deliveries from the West. Ukraine has been receiving a medley of Western artillery systems, armoured vehicles, drones and anti-air systems, but needs to train soldiers to use them. “Ukraine needs another five-to-six months to build a strategic reserve capable of mounting a strategic counteroffensive and taking back Russian-occupied lands,” says Loukopoulos.
Quantity is also an issue. Only 16 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and a handful of M270 and MARS II systems – all variations of the same weapon – have arrived in the field. Ukraine’s defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov has said he needs at least 100 to mount a counteroffensive.
The pacing of deliveries likely stems from Western concerns over how Russia would react in the event of defeat, says Lt.-Gen. Andreas Iliopoulos, who served as deputy commander of the Hellenic Army.
“If Russia is threatened with defeat, I don’t believe it would refrain from the use of nuclear weapons. We shouldn’t expect a nuclear war, but a limited use of tactical nuclear weapons that will bring Ukraine to its knees but won’t draw the US into the war,” he told Al Jazeera.
A final consideration is the Ukrainian need to eliminate uncertainty. “The cost of a failed Ukrainian counteroffensive is probably greater than the gain from a successful one,” says Dr. Samir Puri, senior fellow at the International Institute of Strategic Studies. “If Ukrainians try and fail to retake Kherson, some of their international support may wither. Whereas even if they retake Kherson, this is just the first in many steps required to fully defeat Russia.”
To keep the West on-side, and avoid a nuclear strike, “Ukraine may be attempting to inflict 'death by a thousand cuts' on Russian forces,” says Dr. Puri. “This would leave Russians in Kherson to wither under the threat of an attack for some time, wearing them down slowly. Another theory is these are 'shaping activities' for a Ukrainian offensive that starts later in the year.”
A long game
Russia rebroadened its goals in July to include the southern littoral as well as the east. Set against this, Ukraine’s resilience, assuming unwavering Western support, means that both sides are playing a long game, and the war is unlikely to end anytime soon.
“Annexing four regions is unlikely to be the end of Russia’s mission in Ukraine, but just one phase in Putin’s much longer project. Both Ukraine and its backers must be prepared for a protracted war,” recently wrote Dara Massicot, senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, a US Air Force think tank.
In this long game, economic war becomes more important. Here, more than on the battlefield, Putin has shown foresight.
Russia’s economy will contract by 11.2% this year, says the World Bank - but predicts that with war on its soil, Ukraine’s economy will shrink by 45%, requiring massive cash injections from Western allies to maintain the public payroll and armed forces.
By occupying the east, Russia has already deprived Ukraine of an estimated $12.4tr in energy, metals and mineral wealth in the occupied Luhansk and Donetsk regions, the Washington Post recently reported, offering an explanation as to why Russian president Vladimir Putin prioritised them.
Russia also holds Europe in its thrall by supplying just under a third of its gas before the war. Russian state gas company Gazprom has cut deliveries to Europe in stages, threatening a shutdown of factories and recession in Germany. On July 26, it halved supply through Nordstream 1 pipeline to 20% of capacity, prompting EU energy ministers to agree to voluntarily reduce use of natural gas by 15% between August and March. Even so, experts say, Europe may face a gas deficit this winter.
The threat has a strategic use - to discourage European weapons deliveries and cash assistance to Ukraine. Russian foreign policy rhetoric has repeatedly aimed at highlighting differences between US an European interests.
At the same time the war has raised Russia’s revenues from its dwindling exports of oil and gas because energy prices have soared, and this has paid for Russia’s war. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) found that Russia earned almost $1bn a day from oil and gas exports during the first 100 days of the war, outstripping its estimated daily war costs of $876mn.
Time may not be on Russia’s side, either, over the longer term. The US has banned Russian oil and gas. An EU ban on Russian oil takes effect at the end of the year. A gas ban could follow if Europe secures alternative supplies. Western sanctions are slowly starving Russia of high-tech components it needs to replace tanks and planes.
In terms of money, men and technology, the Russia-Ukraine war appears set to be a fight to a bitter end.
Timeline: The first six months of Russia’s war in Ukraine
On February 21 Vladimir Putin ordered troops into the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, and recognised them as independent states. Three days later Russia launched a full-scale assault on Ukraine from Belarus to the north, the occupied Crimea peninsula to the south and its own soil to the east. These are the main events of the war that has followed.
Phase 1 – Russia sets out to conquer all of Ukraine and replace its government. The West reacts with the most comprehensive financial and trade sanctions ever enforced.
February 24: US president Joe Biden extends full blocking sanctions to four Russian banks and bans exports of sensitive US technologies, especially in the aviation, maritime and defence sectors.
February 26-27: The EU bans selected Russian banks from SWIFT and freezes Russian central bank deposits. It also banks Russian aircraft from EU airspace.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy refuses a US offer to evacuate, saying, “The fight is here.” Russia’s assault on Kiyv, Kharkiv and Chernihiv stalls as Ukrainian defenders target supply vehicles with Javelin missiles.
Oil majors Shell, BP and Norway’s sovereign wealth fund pull out of Russian joint ventures, crippling their development.
February 28: Ukraine applies to join the EU.
March 1: A new, 65km-long Russian convoy heads for Kiyv. The US closes its skies to Russian air traffic.
March 2: Russian forces enter Kherson. A million Ukrainians are now refugees.
March 4: Russian forces shell Europe’s biggest nuclear plant of Zaporizhzhia,
Raising fears of a Chernobyl-style disaster.
March 8: The European Commission unveils REPowerEU, a plan to reduce dependence on Russian natural gas by two thirds by the end of the year. The US imposes a ban on Russian crude oil imports. Ukrainian refugees are now two million.
US Congress approves $13.6bn in spending for Ukraine, divided equally between aid for refugees and military aid for the front.
March 11: Russian armour enters northwestern outskirts of Kiyv, but already faces manpower shortages. Russian president Vladimir Putin approves the deployment of up to 16,000 irregular fighters from Syria.
The European Union issues the Versailles Declaration in response to the Ukraine war, calling for member states to strengthen defence spending.
March 13: Russia broadens its targets westward, firing 30 cruise missiles at a military training base in Yavoriv, 25km from the Polish border, killing 35.
March 14: Top Putin aide Viktor Zolotov, who heads the national guard, becomes the first high-ranking Russian to admit the war in Ukraine is not going as planned.
March 16: Russia bombs Mariupol theatre, killing at least 300 sheltering civilians.
March 23: NATO estimates that Russia has lost 7,000-15,000 troops during a month of war. NATO estimates Russian dead, wounded, captured and missing is 40,000 (WSJ).
March 24: The US pledges to provide Europe with 15bn cubic metres more natural gas in 2022 than in 2021, bringing shipments to Europe to 37bcm. It pledges an additional 50bcma by 2030.
Phase 2 – Russia refocuses on the east, as Ukraine launches counteroffensives in the north and south, taking back more than a thousand settlements. The US and Britain commit 80km range GMLRS
March 25: Russia says it will focus on consolidating its control over the eastern Ukrainian provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, in an apparent redefinition of its war aims.
More than 3.7mn Ukrainians are refugees.
March 27: Zelenskyy tells Russian journalists on a video call that he is willing to consider geopolitical neutrality for Ukraine, and to compromise on the status of the eastern Donbas region, which formed the pretext for Russia’s invasion.
March 29: Russian and Ukrainian negotiators meet in Istanbul – their first in-person meeting in over three weeks. Ukraine puts forward a detailed proposal of neutrality.
April 1: An Al Jazeera report reveals that Russia is using proxy groups in Syria to recruit fighters for Ukraine.
April 2: As Russian troops withdraw from Bucha, a town northwest of Kiev, dozens of apparently civilian corpses are found on the streets.
April 4: US president Joe Biden calls for Putin to stand a war crimes tribunal for the alleged Russian killings of civilians in Bucha.
April 5: Internally displaced Ukrainians now number 7.1mn. Al Jazeera uncovers testimony from Bucha residents saying they have been tortured and their lives threatened by Russian soldiers.
April 6: The Biden administration prohibits US investment in Russia and calls on the G20 to expel it.
April 7: Russia fires a cluster munition into the Kramatorsk railway station packed with thousands of evacuees, killing at least 52.
The UN General Assembly votes to suspend Russia from the organisation’s Human Rights Council.
April 8: Forensic experts start exhuming bodies in mass graves in Bucha.
The European Union bans imports of Russian coal in reaction to Russia’s apparent slaughter of civilians there. The ban will deprive Russia of 8bn euros a year. As part of this fifth round of sanctions, the EU also bans imports of Russian lumber, cement, seafood and fertilisers. The EU also bans the export to Russia of jet fuel and sensitive technologies and software.
European Commission president Ursula Von Der Leyen hands Zelenskyy a questionnaire starting off the beginning of Ukraine’s EU membership application process.
April 14: Ukraine sinks the Russian Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva, after hitting it with two Neptune missiles.
April 16: Russia’s defence ministry says it controls the port of Mariupol, although fighting continues.
April 18: Russian forces launch a new, large-scale offensive in east Ukraine to take full control of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.
April 21: Putin declares victory in the battle for Mariupol, even though some 2,500 Ukrainian marines remain barricaded in the Azovstal steel plant
April 28: The US Congress revives Lend-Lease facilities to speed up weapons shipments to Ukraine. US president Joe Biden asks Congress to approve a $33bn spending package for Ukraine.
May 4: Ukrainian and Russian reports agree that a Ukrainian counteroffensive north and east of Kharkiv has pushed Russian troops 40km back from the city, in the first major Ukrainian success since winning the battle for Kiev.
The European Commission unveils a sixth round of sanctions for discussion, including “a complete import ban on all Russian oil, seaborne and pipeline, crude and refined,” in Commission president Ursula Von Der Leyen’s words to European Parliament, effective by the end of the year.
May 5: Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi states that Ukrainian forces are transitioning to counteroffensive operations around Kharkiv and Izyum, the first direct Ukrainian military statement of a shift to offensive operations.
May 11: Ukraine for the first time limits Russian gas transiting its territory to Europe, cutting by a quarter the flow of gas through one of two major pipelines.
May 12: Finland announces it will seek NATO membership.
The UNHCR says the number of Ukrainian refugees has passed the six-million mark.
May 15: Sweden announces it will apply for NATO membership, ending two centuries of neutrality.
May 16: Ukraine’s defence ministry says its troops have advanced to the Russian border 40km north of Kharkiv, and Russian defensive efforts are focusing on preventing an incursion towards Belgorod in Russia.
May 17: Ukraine’s military declares an end to the Azovstal operation in Mariupol.
May 18: The European Commission announces a 220bn euro plan to ditch all Russian fossil fuels over five years.
May 19: US Congress approves a $40bn aid package for Ukraine, significantly more than the $33bn Biden asked for, about half of which is intended for military aid and supplies.
May 21: The battle for the city of Severdonetsk in Luhansk province begins in earnest.
Russia’s defence ministry can honestly claim it has full control of Mariupol, following the evacuation of 1,908 defenders of the Azovstal plant there, a month after Putin declared victory over the city.
May 25: Eduard Basurin, deputy head of the militia of the Russia-backed Donetsk People’s Republic, says Russia is for now forswearing the larger strategy of surrounding all of Ukraine’s forces in the east with a grand pincer movement, instead focusing on piecemeal isolations. Russian forces also start building secondary lines of defence in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, expecting Ukrainian counterattacks there.
May 27: Russian forces advance on Severdonetsk from three different directions, and begin direct assaults on built-up areas of the city in the north, taking control of the Mir hotel.
May 28: Ukraine launches a counteroffensive in Kherson, reportedly bringing Russian forces to a “disadvantageous” defensive position and inflicting heavy losses.
May 30 : After some hesitation, Biden decides to send “more advanced rocket systems” to Ukraine to enable greater precision artillery strikes. The US will send guided multiple launch rocket systems (GMLRS) and the HIMARS with 80km range rockets.
May 31 : Russian forces occupy the centre of Severdonetsk as Ukrainian troops make a tactical retreat, but fighting continues.
In the south, Ukrainian forces press a counteroffensive towards Kherson, pushing Russian forces east of the Inhulets river.
The European Union bans Russian oil and petroleum products, following a decision on a sixth package of sanctions against Russia.
June 2: Kherson oblast military administration head Hennadiy Lahuta reports that the Ukrainian counteroffensive has liberated 20 villages.
June 6: Britain announces it will send M270 multiple launch rocket systems with 80km range to Ukraine, in co-ordination with Biden’s decision to send High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers.
June 9: Russian president Vladimir Putin likens his conquest of Ukraine to Peter the Great’s conquest of what is today northwestern Russia in a war fought against Sweden in 1700-1721.
June 13: NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg appears to suggest that Ukraine will have to accept a loss of sovereignty or territory in return for peace, during a press conference in Finland.
June 15: Russia cuts gas deliveries to Europe through the Nordstream 1 pipeline to 40% of capacity.
June 22: Ukraine says it has taken back from Russian control 1,026 settlements.
June 24: For the first time Ukraine’s defence ministry does not mention fighting in Severdonetsk, suggesting the city has been tactically surrendered. Though there is still rearguard fighting, Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai says the city will be abandoned.
The European Union officially invites Ukraine and Moldova to become candidate countries for EU membership.
June 27: Russian missiles strike a shopping mall in Kremenchuk, central Ukraine, killing at least 18. Russia denies it is behind the attack.
Russia defaults on its sovereign debt for the first time since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, as 30-day grace period on $100mn of interest payments expires.
NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg says the alliance is to increase its Readiness Force (NRF) from 40,000 to 300,000.
June 29: NATO formally invites Finland and Sweden to become members of the alliance, after Turkey lifts its veto.
June 30: After being pounded by Ukrainian missiles, Russian forces are withdrawn from Snake Island in the Black Sea. The Russian defence ministry presents this as a gesture to demonstrate that it is not causing a famine by blockading the export of Ukrainian grain.
July 3: Russia claims victory over Lysychansk, giving it nominal control of Luhansk oblast, though partisan fighting continues.
Phase 3 – Russia re-expands its goals to include Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Ukraine uses GMLRS to devastate Russian ammunition, bases and command posts deep behind the frontlines, and targets logistics chokepoints.
July 4: Some 40 countries participate in an International Conference on the Restoration of Ukraine in Lugano, Switzerland. Ukrainian prime minister Denys Shmyhal says $750bn will be needed.
July 17: Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia has now fired 3,000 cruise missiles against his country.
July 20: In an interview with Russian newspaper Ria Novosti, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia had departed from its shrunken official goal of occupying the two eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, saying Zaporizhia and Kherson in the south are also important.
July 21: In the southern Kherson region, Ukraine says it has destroyed a Russian ammunition warehouse.
July 22: Russia and Ukraine sign a UN-brokered agreement allowing the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea.
July 26: Russian state company Gazprom says it will halve gas supply through the Nordstream 1 pipeline to 20% of capacity. EU energy ministers agree to voluntarily reduce use of natural gas by 15% between August this year and March 2023.
July 27: Ukrainian forces damage the Antonivka vehicle and rail bridges using HIMARS rocket artillery, rendering them unusable for heavy military transport. This helps cut off forward Russian positions in Kherson.
July 29: Fifty Ukrainian PoWs are killed when their detention facility is blown up in Olenivka, Donetsk. Russia says Ukraine targeted its own men. Ukraine says Russia blew up its own penal colony “to cover up war crimes.”
July 30: Ukraine’s air force says it destroyed two Russian command posts and ammunition depots in unspecified locations, killing dozens.
July 31: A presumed Ukrainian drone flies into Russia’s Black Sea fleet headquarters in Sevastopol on Russia’s Navy Day, wounding five people.
August 1: The first ship with Ukrainian grain following a July 22 agreement to lift a Russian blockade is to leave port. The Sierra Leone-flagged Razoni is to carry 26,000 tonnes of Ukrainian corn from Odesa to Tripoli in Lebanon.
August 6: Ukraine’s southern command says its forces destroy 39 Russian rocket launchers and an ammunition warehouse.
August 7: Ukraine’s southern command reports destroying 24 Russian multiple rocket launchers, a T-62 tank, five armoured vehicles and an ammunition warehouse in strikes against Berislavsky and one other location in Kherson oblast.
August 9: An estimated nine Russian warplanes were destroyed on the ground at the airbase of Saki in the Crimea, 225km behind the frontline, in what would appear to be the first major Ukrainian attack on a Russian base on the peninsula.
Ukraine also destroys Russian ammunition warehouses in Novooleksiivka in Crimea, 150km south of the frontline, and on the command post of the 217th Guards Airbourne Regiment at Maksyma Horkoho on the southwestern Kherson coast.
August 11: Ukraine’s southern command says its forces destroyed a Russian artillery ammunition warehouse at Barvinok, 20km northwest of Kherson city, and the command post of the 126th Guards Coastal Defence Brigade in Novokamynaka, 60km east of Kherson city.
August 15: Ukraine says it destroyed Russian equipment and ammunition in Novopetrivka in Zaporizhia oblast, and Blagodativka and Maksymivka in Kherson oblast.
August 16: A series of explosions shakes the village of Mayskoye in the Crimea, as a suspected Russian ammunition depot goes up in flames, forcing the evacuation of 3,000 people. Russia calls it “a result of sabotage” without assigning blame.