In the course of war, the belligerents basically do not make public their strategic and tactical intentions and the specific movements of their troops in a big way. However, in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, we saw an unusual scene, that is, the Ukrainian side took the initiative to disclose the direction and time of launching a large-scale counterattack. According to CCTV, Budanov, director of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, said in an interview that the Ukrainian army will launch a counterattack on the entire line from Crimea to Donbas, and the counterattack time is set for spring.
Budanov, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine
As the supreme authority in the Ukrainian intelligence service, Budanov openly revealed such a major military operation, which is clearly contrary to secrecy. One possible reason is that Budanov deliberately released fake news in an attempt to arouse the concerns and worries of the Russian side, and then make the actions of the Russian army on the battlefield fearful, and at the same time, this can also cover the true offensive direction of the Ukrainian army to a certain extent.
Poland promised to aid Ukraine with the "Leopard-2" main battle tank
However, in terms of Western aid to Ukraine alone, in less than a month after entering 2023, the Ukrainian army has received and will receive a considerable degree of various materials, such as more than 300,000 shells of various types, 100 self-propelled or towed artillery pieces, and more than 110 armored vehicles of various types, and the Ukrainian army will also receive the British "Challenger-2" and Poland's German-made "Leopard-2" main battle tanks. Obviously, these military aid supplies are absolutely abundant. But even so, the Ukrainian dream of launching a full-line counteroffensive may still be difficult to realize. The reason is very simple, the "two magic weapons" that the Ukrainian army relied on in the past have not been small.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky inspects the recaptured Kharkov
First, Ukraine's "superiority" magic weapon is close to exhaustion, and it is basically impossible to imitate last year's Kharkiv counterattack victory and intersperse and encircle the Russian positions in a multi-way manner. On the one hand, the Ukrainian army has been fighting in an asymmetric firepower environment for a long time, and often can only fill the firepower gap with human lives, which has led to its casualty level always being an order of magnitude higher than that of the Russian army. Earlier, Ukrainian officials admitted that the high-quality soldiers of the Ukrainian army have been basically exhausted, which seriously affects the combat effectiveness of the troops. We can also see from the Internet that more and more middle-aged and elderly soldiers and childish baby soldiers have begun to appear in the Ukrainian army, and they want to rely on these untrained soldiers to achieve a successful counterattack, or it is no different from "sending to death".
About 200,000 Russian troops remain unemployed
On the other hand, the available forces of the Russian army were far stronger than the garrison in Kharkov at that time, and it was no longer just two brigades facing tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops. Of the 300,000 reservists mobilized by the Russian side, nearly 100,000 have been put into battle, and about 200,000 mobile troops are ready to reinforce the front line. In addition, the Russian mercenary "Wagner Group" is also constantly recruiting new "security personnel", further enriching the front-line forces of the Russian side.
The Ukrainian army can receive intelligence support from NATO
Second, the Ukrainian army's magic weapon of "battlefield situation awareness" began to gradually fail. Recalling the Kharkiv counterattack launched by the Ukrainian side, a key factor in its success in forcing back the Russian army is that NATO countries have provided Ukraine with rich battlefield intelligence and digital communication systems, and the Ukrainian command can receive information provided by NATO early warning aircraft and the American "Starlink" satellite system in real time. Under this advantageous position of almost "one-way transparency on the battlefield", the Ukrainian army can naturally find the loopholes in the Russian army's defense line and launch a fierce attack. The Russian army, on the other hand, could only "retreat in great strides" and was forced to resist step by step by shrinking the front.
Russian "Murmansk-BN" electronic warfare system
But this is gradually changing, and it may be difficult for Russia to catch up with NATO countries in terms of digitalization, but this does not mean that it is powerless to stop Western countries from collecting information on the battlefield. It is reported that the "Murmansk-BN" electronic warfare system with a jamming radius of about 5,000 kilometers has appeared in the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, and the Russian army's electronic warfare system has caused considerable interference and obstruction to the radar and communication systems of NATO countries.
The prospects for the Ukrainian army's counterattack may be uncertain
From this point of view, in the case of the two major advantages of soldiers and battlefield situation perception, the Ukrainian army will once again face the dilemma in the early stage of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, that is, it is suppressed by Russia's technological weapon superiority. It is no wonder that the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Zaluzhne said that Kiev needs at least 300 main battle tanks and 600~700 armored vehicles to effectively counter the Russian army. It's a pity that the scale of this heavy equipment has probably exceeded the current assistance capabilities of Western countries ...