It’s a series of attacks that owes nothing to chance, while everyone is talking about the Ukrainian counter-offensive. In recent days, several bombings and acts of sabotage attributed to Kiev have targeted Russian infrastructure in the occupied territories and border regions.
Ukrainian forces specifically attacked a village in Russia’s Bryansk region on Tuesday (May 2), the regional governor told Telegram. In the evening, a new freight train derailed due to the deflagration of an “explosive device”. The day before, another locomotive and seven wagons had been the target of a bomb attack in this border region. On the same day, according to local authorities, a high-voltage power line was damaged in an explosion, this time in the Leningrad region near the border with Estonia.
This weekend, five villages in the Belgorod region also suffered the wrath of Ukrainian artillery, causing power outages. A drone strike also caused a gigantic fire at an oil depot in Sevastopol, Crimea.
Since the invasion of Ukraine erupted in February 2022, the Russian authorities have regularly denounced incursions by Ukrainian armed groups into their territory, particularly the Bryansk region. For its part, Kiev almost never complains about these acts of sabotage, which are often aimed at the railways on which the Russian army’s logistics depend.
“The counter-offensive has already begun at the strategic level, with its deep actions at command posts and logistic hubs to slow down the supply of the Russian army, especially fuel and ammunition,” General Dominique Trinquand, former head of the Russian Federation, analyzes the French military mission at the UN. “The Ukrainians are also trying to blind the Russians by hitting their electronic warfare tools,” that is, the tools for intercepting, locating, and jamming enemy communications.
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“This is used to lay out the battlefield in anticipation of the preferred axes of attack. It’s all about preventing the opponent from storing equipment or sending their reinforcements quickly. Your media coverage can also be used to fool opponents. But all this can take several weeks, do not think that this type of action means an imminent operation”, Nuance Guillaume Lasconjarias, military historian and teacher at the Sorbonne.
A similar campaign of targeted attacks and sabotage intended to “shape the battlefield” also took place in late summer 2022. It culminated in the victorious counter-offensive that pushed the Russians back east into the Kharkiv and Isium regions south in preparation for recapturing Kherson.
war of nerves
But in contrast to the strict information blackout imposed by Kiev during last year’s counteroffensive, this time Ukraine seems strangely quick to communicate its intentions. “Preparations are coming to an end,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on Friday. “The equipment was promised, prepared and partially delivered. In the broadest sense, we’re ready,” he added of Western weapons and equipment.
“There is a lot of strategic communication to put pressure on the Russians. However, if we know that there will be a counter-offensive, we don’t know where, when and how it will take place,” General Trinquand recalled.
“The goal is actually to create a climate of nervousness among the Russians,” confirms Guillaume Lasconjarias. “But beyond that, it’s about addressing Ukrainian public opinion, which is waiting for this offensive. Finally, to say that there will be a counterattack, but that there are still needs, also puts some form of pressure on the West’s allies to have the armament, logistics and ammunition at the rendezvous point of this counteroffensive.”
For its part, Russia does not want to sit idly by, as the increase in rocket attacks on Ukrainian territory in recent days has shown. Moscow on Friday staged the largest wave of strikes since March, killing 26 people, including 23 residents of the same building in Uman.
“The Russian Defense Ministry recently changed its rhetoric, attempting to present this strike campaign as a proactive approach amid growing concerns within the Russian information space about the Ukrainian counteroffensive,” the Institute for the Study of War notes in a note released Monday.
The leader of Russia’s Wagner paramilitary group, Yevgeny Prigoyine, said on Sunday that a Ukrainian counter-offensive could even be “a tragedy” for Russia as its men lack ammunition. “We only have 10-15% of the ammunition we need,” assured the Wagner boss. Yevgeny Prigozhin, who blamed senior Russian military officials for the shortages, said he expected a Ukrainian attack in mid-May.
“One Shot Rifle”
If the Wagner boss, as usual, pleads for his community, this departure reveals some concern on the Russian side, while Kiev can count on the bulk of the weapons promised by the West for its offensive. According to the NATO Secretary General, Ukraine has received “98% of the military aid promised by the West”. A total of “1,550 armored vehicles, 230 tanks and lots of ammunition” were delivered, said Jens Stoltenberg last week.
Despite their losses since the conflict began, the Ukrainians have managed to build an army trained to NATO standards. “We are talking about a number of 60,000 men divided into 12 brigades on the Ukrainian side,” General Trinquand specified. “Given the quality of equipment and the quality of preparation, the Ukrainians are in a strong position to achieve victory on a small scale,” predicts the military expert.
On the other hand, the Russians have established an 800km defense line from Crimea to Kharkiv, made up of minefields, dragon’s teeth (concrete cones to slow down the advance of armored vehicles) and trenches. The success of the counteroffensive will largely depend on the ability of the Ukrainian armed forces to “break through”, that is, to overcome, all these obstacles.
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“This requires technical resources to pump the rivers or mine clearance to let the tanks pass,” General Trinquand says. “You have to break through, but then you have to be able to exploit it. That means sending reinforcements and at the same time not being able to react to the Russians,” explains Guillaume Lasconjarias.
The deployment is crucial for Ukraine, which has an opportunity to strike a decisive blow at Russian forces, which the United States says have lost 100,000 men since December 2022, including 20,000 dead and 80,000 wounded.
“But for Ukraine, it’s a single-shot rifle,” General Dominique Trinquand said. “They may succeed in pushing the Russian army forward and creating an uproar that will be felt as far as the Kremlin. But if that fails, we face several months of frontline confrontation and a return to war.” .