According to its own statements, Kiev has taken up positions on the left bank of the Dnieper for several days, where there were reportedly heavy fighting. On Tuesday, November 21, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu assured that his troops would repel any landing operations in southern Ukraine, in the Kherson region. Has the Ukrainian counteroffensive launched last spring, which has so far failed to break through Russian defensive lines, ultimately identified a flaw in the Russian system?
Published on: November 22, 2023 – 12:08
3 mins
Just two weeks ago the front appeared to be a dead end, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces admitted, but the front line actually appears to be less frozen than it appears. 48 hours ago, the Kiev army claimed that its troops had managed to entrench themselves on the other side of the Dniepernear the mouth of the river, the Russian army pushed back three to eight kilometers.
Eight kilometers would be the Ukrainian army’s biggest advance in months. Above all, the Ukrainian soldiers managed to cross the river and that is already an achievement, notes the international risk consultant Stéphane Audrand: “Yes, at the moment only small pockets are being built on the other side of the bank,” in this swampy lowland area, along the river. So, strictly speaking, it is not a bridgehead with logistical flow capacity. We have really light forces that are often projected at night with small boats setting up. In fact, it is a novelty in this swampy area that the Russians no longer dispute. But it’s not really a beachhead. »
A bridge necessary for a breakthrough
In order for this first anchorage to be converted into a breakthrough, the Ukrainian army will necessarily have to rely on a pontoon bridge, and throwing a structure across the Dnieper that will support the passage of motorized infantry will not be an easy task, explains Stéphane Audrand.
“The first step in building a bridgehead would be to send slightly stronger forces by barge, but quite quickly if you have the ambition to commit four or five brigades to an offensive. You need at least one bridge, ideally two. These are not small articulated bridges 900 meters or 1 kilometer long, they require floating bridges, boat bridges and therefore it is almost impossible to achieve operational surprise. So at the moment we actually have a promise, it’s always good to get stuck on the opposition bench like that, it gives us chances, but at the moment that’s all we can do. We see. »
The West has actually delivered floating bridges to Ukraine, they could enable larger operations in this front area, where Kiev has concentrated very experienced troops capable of carrying out complex operations. But on the Ukrainian side, the advantage could also come from Rasputitza, as these abundant autumn rains could disrupt the massive deployment of small Russian armed drones and represent a real brake on mobile warfare. The Ukrainian General Staff has been trying to reproduce these large-scale speed-based maneuvers that were so successful in Kiev during the Battle of Kharkiv in the summer of 2022 in order to get out of this trench warfare.
Also read: Ukraine: The South behind the front