Clock ticks in Ukraine’s offensive as bad weather approaches

Ukrainian soldiers are racing against time to achieve a breakthrough in the country’s southeast before the rainy and cold weather kicks in and worsens fighting conditions, which could happen as soon as next month.

The counteroffensive is unlikely to end just because of poor weather, but it is expected to complicate the fighting and slow down operations.

Ukraine is stressing the weather will not impact the overall military operation, but some analysts expect the war could soon shift into a new phase.

Mathieu Boulègue, a nonresident senior fellow with the Transatlantic Defense and Security Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), said it would not be long before another cycle begins in which fighting slows down in the fall and winter before the spring opens the door for another offensive.

“Without a complete breakdown of Russian positions in the coming days, then yes, positions will stall,” he said. “This will be the end of Ukraine’s onus, and the ball will be in Russia’s court.”

The concerns about weather impeding the counteroffensive that launched in June were amplified by Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, who assessed earlier this month that Kyiv has up to 45 days of good fighting weather left.

That sent the clock ticking in an already slow-paced military operation, though it also led to denials from Kyiv.

Ukraine’s intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said at a conference event this month that the mud and cold would have a “negative impact” and complicate the use of tanks and armored vehicles, but he stressed the counteroffensive will continue, rain or shine.

“The offensive will continue in all of the areas,” Budanov said. 

On Tuesday, Milley rephrased his assessment to say Ukraine does not have to halt its operation because of bad weather but will certainly face more challenges because of it.

“This fight is not yet over … [and they] still got plenty of fighting weather left,” Milley said during a press conference. “In the conversations I’ve had, there’s no intention whatsoever by the Ukrainians to stop fighting during the winter. They have the strategic initiative right now and they intend to continue to do that until their end state’s achieved.”

Ukrainian forces have made steady progress in the counteroffensive but have yet to achieve a breakthrough. Still, they have taken back dozens more square miles of territory than Russian forces, which launched an offensive in the winter and spring and barely managed to retake the city of Bakhmut.

While Ukraine is pushing closer to retaking Bakhmut, most of the fighting is concentrated in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, where Ukraine has penetrated the first line of Russian defenses but faces more layers of minefields and antitank obstacles.

After securing the town of Robotyne, Ukraine has gained a foothold in Russian-held territory as it looks to next take the town of Tokmak and then on toward the city of Melitopol, the main objective of the campaign that if successful would cut off Russian supply lines.

Since Ukraine is grinding through Russian-occupied territory with infantry and armored vehicles, muddy conditions would make it harder to move across the ground and get past those lines. And during the winter, the tempo of the war generally slows.

Hein Goemans, director of the Peter D. Watson Center for Conflict & Cooperation at the University of Rochester, said unless Ukraine manages to reach Tokmak by late October, he expects the lines to remain in place for most of the winter.

“I’m not willing to say the campaign is over, because I don’t believe it is,” he said. “They could be really close [to a breakthrough].”

But Goemans said even if the counteroffensive slows down soon without a breakthrough, the overall campaign was positive in terms of military strategic objectives.

“Ukrainians needed to show that they could break through, and the Russians needed to show that they could stop it and they could drag it on as long as possible,” he said, referring to Kyiv’s piercing of the main lines last month. “The Ukrainians proved that they were right and that the Russians were wrong.”

If Ukraine wants to keep Russia on its back foot, troops will need to adjust tactics to stay on the offensive when the poor weather comes around. That might include covert operations during the winter.

During the winter, Ukraine can keep up its pressure on Russia and prepare for another big push in the spring, said Boulegue from CEPA.

“Geography, terrain and weather allow you to have different responses depending on what the conditions are,” he said, “and if these conditions are not fit for receiving rapid advances, then you do other things.”

Other analysts have said that, while the weather will certainly be demanding, Ukraine is not forced to reduce its operations significantly because of mud and rain.

The Institute for the Study of War has assessed that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is picking up steam and is nowhere near culminating.

Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow and director of research in foreign policy at the Brookings Institute, noted that Ukraine retook the Kherson region in a surprise attack last November.

“Are the Ukrainians running out of time? Yes and no,” he said in an email. “Yes, it will soon be muddy, for a couple months. But no, fall and winter will not end the fighting, even for the season.”

Long-term strategies around weather aside, Ukraine will certainly be pushing to take as much ground as possible in the next month.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed to press on and maintains that weather is only one aspect of the war.

“We need to liberate our territory as much as possible,” Zelensky told CBS News this month. “Forget about the weather and the like. In places that we can’t get through in an armored vehicle, let’s fly. If we can’t fly, let’s send drones. We mustn’t give Putin a break.”

The counteroffensive is proceeding slower than anticipated, but Ukraine is making steady progress and is expected to continue to chip away at Russian defenses if Western arms support remains strong.

At the press conference this week, Milley noted Ukraine has regained about 54 percent of its territory since Russia invaded in early 2022 and was continuing to advance.

But working through roughly 300,000 entrenched Russian troops is a difficult and long process, the nation’s top military officer said.

“This is a defensive series of belts that the Russians have put in with complex obstacles, minefields, dragon’s teeth, barb wire, strong points and so on,” he said. “It’s a defense in depth. And generally speaking, the Ukrainians have penetrated several layers of this defense.”

“It is not 100 percent penetrated yet, but they’ve penetrated several of the layers and they’re going very slow, preserving their combat power and very deliberately through this defensive belt that stretches the entire length and breadth of Russian-occupied Ukraine.”