Gressel evaluates counter-offensive
“The Russian Front in Kherson will not collapse”
09/05/2022, 4:55 p.m
A good week ago, Ukraine launched an offensive against Russian troops, first in the south of the country and later also in the east. For a long time there was silence about their progress and possible success, on social media there was sometimes wild speculation as to which villages were recaptured and which are contested. However, there is no certainty. Recently, however, both Ukrainian and Russian sources have reported two towns in Cherson and one in the Donbass, which are said to be back in the hands of Ukrainian troops after hard fighting. However, there remains a great deal of skepticism as to how great and enduring these successes will be. In an interview with Tamara Bilic, military expert Gustav Gressel from the European Council on Foreign Relations shares this skepticism.
He states that the success in the Donbass in particular, where Ukrainian troops even managed to cross the river Siversky Donets and take control of a town behind it, is unexpected, but he points out: “The Russians are also relocating new forces in the Donbass. We have to see how long and how far it goes now.”
According to Gressel, there are currently small successes, but the Ukrainian troops lack the necessary superiority of forces that would be necessary for a deep breakthrough. Gressel justifies the current situation by saying that Ukraine has specifically identified and exploited weaknesses in the Russian troops. The fact is that “the Russians are having logistical difficulties in Cherson,” said the military expert. The supply is currently done by boat across the Dnieper. That takes a long time because ammunition or war equipment has to be reloaded again and again. So there would be a shortage of ammunition and fuel among the Russian troops. However, the resulting weaknesses have to be identified again and again by Ukraine, sometimes successfully, sometimes without success. Still: “It’s not a big wash up now that the Russian front is collapsing in one line, it’s a piecemeal eroding of the Russian defenses in Kherson.”
“Ukrainian soldiers don’t start from scratch”
When asked whether it currently makes sense to send modern weapons to Ukraine, as Ukraine often demands, Gressel replies: “Yes, of course.” In particular, the delivery of “Leopard II” main battle tanks should have taken place in the spring. According to Gressel, the great advantage of these main battle tanks over the main battle tanks developed in the Soviet Union, such as the T-64 or T-72, is the significantly higher chance of survival for the soldiers in the tank in the event of a direct hit.
Gressel says of the Russian models that if they get hit, they usually “burn out with the entire crew.” However, a surviving crew is an important “capability maintenance”, according to Gressel. Because training a capable crew is more difficult than “getting a new battle tank”. However, since the tanks currently in use burn out so often, experienced tank crews are currently scarce on both the Russian and Ukrainian sides.
Gressel clearly counters a concern that is often expressed in public debate. The training of Ukrainian soldiers on Western tanks does not take as long as is often claimed. “The crews don’t start from scratch,” says Gressel. It’s about tank crews on T-64 or T-72 main battle tanks who have to relearn, but they don’t have to “reinvent mechanized warfare”. According to Gressel, these crews would know what an attack or delay battle looks like and what their role is in it. You only have to be trained on the specific system and learn the “quirks”, i.e. the strengths and weaknesses of the systems, according to the expert.
Russian troops are not generally badly supplied
Gressel also classifies a suspicion repeatedly expressed – both by Ukraine and by Western secret services – a little differently. It is said that Russian troops would refuse to serve due to poor supplies. Although Gressel confirms isolated reports, it is unclear whether these are individual local peculiarities or an area-wide problem. The lack of drinking water in particular is currently having an effect in the south. It is currently quite hot in the Kherson region. The situation of many units that are in this region “is bad,” said Gressel.
Nevertheless, he assumes that this is currently more of an isolated phenomenon. Such reports naturally play into Ukraine’s hands and she is interested in conveying this image to the outside world “to show how bad the opponent is”. But Gressel does not want to see a general trend towards refusal to serve by Russian soldiers.
But this could become a bigger problem for Russian troops in the fall, says Gressel. Then many service contracts expired. The so-called autumn rotation starts in September and will probably last until November. Many Russian soldiers would then actually have the right to return home. According to Gressel, there have always been unrest in similar situations in the past because the Russian army is said to have tried “to put pressure on them to stay in the war.” Since Russia is not a constitutional state, there have been repeated attempts to keep the soldiers in line “through tricks or coercion”.