After months of preliminaries, the long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces occupying Ukraine kicked off on June 8. Understanding what’s happening as both sides work to shape the information battlespace can be a challenge.
During my 24-year career as a U.S. Army intelligence officer, with most of that time serving in armored units, I constantly trained on Soviet doctrine. Here is a short guide to understanding the complex military operation unfolding in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s objective in its counteroffensive is to reclaim as much of its territory from Russia as possible — not only land seized in Russia’s 2022 invasion, but also lands taken in 2014 — the Donbas region to the east and even Crimea. But taking land won’t be the object of the counterattack per se, but rather destroying the Russian army in Ukraine.
Destroying the army and taking the land naturally follows. Focus on terrain, as the Russians did in trying to take Bakhmut, and you risk an intact enemy mounting his own counterattack.
Russia has had months to prepare a layered defense consisting of anti-tank ditches, minefields, and trenches. One way to think of these preparations is as a labor-saving investment in capital. Fewer soldiers need to cover a frontage and those soldiers will have a higher survival rate in the face of artillery bombardments, artillery being responsible for about 80 percent of the casualties on the modern battlefield.
But defenses don’t do anything unless they’re covered with observation and fires; both direct, rifle, machinegun, and anti-armor;
