The potential for a Ukrainian counteroffensive in 2024 has been openly discussed by the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as by the commander of the Ukrainian ground forces Lieutenant General Oleksandr Pavlyuk.
Zelenskyy referred to Ukrainian plans for a 2024 counteroffensive in a late February interview, noting: "We will prepare a new counteroffensive, a new operation."
More recently, General Pavlyuk described how Ukraine would rotate frontline forces in the near future and, in doing so, create a new group of forces to conduct "counteroffensive actions".
To plan, prepare for and execute a large-scale counteroffensive in 2024 will be an enormous undertaking for Ukraine. There are three key challenges.
First, Ukraine has a shortage of personnel in its military. The shortages in frontline soldiers are most acute, and this has contributed to the Russians being able to slowly advance in the east and the south over the past couple of months.
Without a resolution to this problem, which would necessitate a wider mobilisation of people in Ukraine, building a reserve of ground forces for offensive actions will be very difficult.
A second challenge is the shortage in firepower. Ukraine is currently experiencing shortfalls in artillery ammunition — for Soviet era and western weapons — as well as shortages in air defence munitions. This was a contributing factor in the recent withdrawal from Avdiivka.
Without a new aid package from the United States, there is little hope of current shortfalls being addressed and even fewer prospects of being able to build up the stocks needed for any large-scale counteroffensive.
A third and final challenge is the current ascendancy of Russian ground forces. As a recent assessment by the Lithuanian State Security Department has described: "Russia has financial, human, material, and technical resources to continue the war at a similar intensity in at least the near term … Military industry is becoming a driving force of Russia's economy at the expense of other sectors."
Russia has the manpower and munitions to continue its current offensive operations, and potentially expand them as spring arrives. It also has the capacity in the short to medium term to replenish losses in both. This is a situation that does not hold true for the Ukrainians.
Read the rest of my final regular column for ABC Australia here.
The biggest hope for a Ukrainian victory most likely lies in the eventual failure and collapse of the Russian economy and its effect on the Russian population and support for Putin. Russian oil exports are falling, especially with secondary sanctions being tightened. Reports of Indian and Turkish companies refusing to ship Russian POL may lead to further reductions in Russian production levels over the 1 million barrels a day they have cut over the past six months. That, along with difficulties getting spare parts and the expertise to use them, could well lead to more problems in their oil industry. The changeover of the Russian economy from a consumer to wartime footing has to eventually significantly affect their standard of living. The fall of the Russian ruble and refusal of virtually any country to accept them as payment has exacerbated their foreign currency problems. While the probability that all this will lead to an eminent collapse is small, this will eventually pull on Putin’s internal support. Sweden’s recent joining of NATO cannot help. The Russian elite cannot be unaware that, foreign policy and military wise, Putin’s war has been a disaster. The fact that Perogsian got as close to Moscow as he did shows that there is significant disquiet already.