If you look at the graph below, yes, Ukraine did get lots of land back in 2022 in blue. But that is before the 2023 Spring Offensive.
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For the 2023 Spring offensive, yes there is a thin sliver of blue, too, but not in any way as pronounced as 2022.
In 2022, no one heard about "Spring Offensive." That word became popular in 2023.
We are now in 2023, not 2022. "Spring Offensive" happened in 2023, so it is important to see how much land Ukraine took back in 2023.
Remember, even when counting massive gains back of land from Ukraine in 2022, Ukraine still needs to take back about 17% of Ukraine's land more which is still in the hands of Russia.
If you looked at the land gained in mainland Europe between 1941 and 1943 you would think that the war in Europe was a massive standstill. The Allies didn't gain an inch of land between the fall of Greece and the invasion of Italy. But a lot happened during those years that contributed to the fall of both Italy and Germany.
Measuring a war by how much land is taken by whom is only measuring one metric. During this year Ukraine has been replacing their old Soviet equipped and doctrine army with a NATO equipped and trained army. Russia started the war with a staggeringly large stockpile of leftover Soviet equipment and ammunition. They have burned through most of that stockpile of ammunition and are drawing down the equipment reserves at an unsustainable rate.
Both Ukraine's allies and Russia are scrambling to build new ammunition. There is a lot of hand wringing in the west about how slow production is spinning up and how the Russians have out shot the Ukrainians in artillery until lately. But while getting good information out of Russia is murky, all the indications I have seen is that Russia is struggling to increase production. They have managed to increase production a bit by putting factories on 24/7 schedules, but finding workers has been a big problem. They also lack access to the machine tools necessary to expand production further. Who makes most of the machine tools needed? Germany. Even China buys most of their machine tools from the US or Germany.
And just measuring artillery by the number of artillery shells fired is a bad metric. At the start of the war Russian artillery was very inaccurate and relied on guys sitting there with a calculator figuring out each shot. Much the way their Soviet great grandfathers did 80 years ago (though they have upgraded from slide rules to electronic calculators). As barrels have worn, they have warped and accuracy has degraded even further. On top of that Russian artillery shells have a dud rate around 30%. Dimitri had a video published by a Russian artillery crew who were seeing none of their shells explode. They opened one and found they had no explosive inside. They were hollow.
I read somewhere last year that a "good" Russian artillery crew can hit a vehicle within 200 rounds. That's not only a heck of a lot of wear and tear on the barrels but it's also a waste of ammunition.
The Ukrainians started with the same Soviet guns but now are using NATO guns. NATO designed their artillery with the axiom of quality over quantity because they knew they couldn't match the Soviets in number of shells fired. NATO guns are designed to automatically calculate the firing solution. You tell the computer the GPS coordinates you want to hit, it knows where you are, and it gives you the firing solution in less than a second. NATO artillery ammunition has a very low dud rate. Ukrainian gun crews using NATO guns are hitting Russian vehicles within 2 shots most of the time.
So the Russians fire 1000 rounds in a day and hit 5 vehicles where the Ukrainians also fire 1000 rounds and hit 500 targets (vehicles or any other target of military significance). The Russians were causing a lot of artillery damage when they had the ammunition and guns to fire 50,000+ rounds a day. But they haven't been able to fire in that kind of volume for more than a year. They burned through their stockpile and now are just able to fire one day's production each day.
NATO armies are reluctant to give away all their supplies. The US especially needs to keep their force up to prevent China from making a move on Taiwan or North Korea to think they can take the South. The fact that either of those armies would likely have to face the full brunt of the US military if they went to war is contributing to keeping them at bay.
It's called a force in being. Having a large force that could be deployed anywhere needed on short notice is enough to keep potential enemies at bay. Britain kept a large force at Scapa Flow for most of WW II to ensure that the German surface navy didn't go to sea. Once the German surface fleet was eliminated as a threat, that British force was freed up to be deployed elsewhere.
Politics also plays a role in delaying supplies to Ukraine, but there is plenty of equipment left in the west. Russia is drawing 70 year old tanks out of storage and sending them to Ukraine while Ukraine is getting much newer equipment. US law does not allow any army but the US services to operate Abrams with the depleted uranium armor. Any Abrams drawn out of storage need to have the armor replaced before being sent to Ukraine. That's a quirk of US law that's not going to change any time soon. No US law is likely going to change for the next 14 months.
Where Russia is running out of reserve equipment there is plenty of reserve equipment left to give to Ukraine in the west. There are also sources that have not been tapped yet. Israel really needs US help right now, and Biden has a back that Israel could scratch. Israel's reserve tank fleet has a large number of upgraded M60s they will probably never use again. Their domestic tank production is enough to keep the IDF supplied with plenty of tanks for the foreseeable future.
It may take a few months to rehab those tanks, but sending them to Ukraine would be a big boost for Ukraine and Israel can get aid from the US in return. The old IDF M60s aren't as good as the Merkavah, or an Abrams, but they probably outclass most, if not all Russian tanks in Ukraine. For the roles tanks are serving in this war, they would be a big asset for Ukraine.
There are lots of untapped pools of resources in the west that haven't been sent to Ukraine while Russia has drawn down most of their own resources and to a large degree they are on their own for building more. If Russia had a decade of peace they could rebuild the army with a fleet of T-90s and BMP-3s, but they can't build anything fast enough while at war to make a significant difference.
Ukraine's progress is agonizingly slow on the front lines, but where it counts, Ukraine is winning.
If a war isn't won in a quick blitzkrieg, it develops into an attritional war. There may be some fast victories like the Battle for France, but what really counts in an attritional war is to either wear down the enemies ability to fight or their willingness to fight. Ukraine's willingness to fight is not going anywhere and as long as the west keeps up the flow, their ability will continue. Russia has a morale problem which is affecting their willingness to fight, but they also have a cultural thing about fighting that they will keep fighting as long as the boss tells them to. Even if it gets everyone killed.
To eliminate an enemy's ability to fight requires either destroying their factories (as the Allies did in WW II) or destroy their men and equipment on the battlefield faster than they can be replaced, which is what Russia is experiencing. The quality of Russian troops and equipment is degrading as the war goes on. Every time a pre-war trained soldier gets killed or severely wounded he is replaced with a conscript with barely any training. Every time a T-90 or BMP-3 is knocked out, it is replaced with a T-64 or a BMP-1. Every time an SP gun is knocked out or wears out, it is replaced with a towed gun or a gun of less capability.
Russia bought time by emptying their warehouses of all the mines and creating an absolutely mind boggling huge minefield all along the south. The Ukrainians have breached those fields in several places. Rather than just run pell mell into the gap they created, they are taking the time to expand the width of the breech. This will give them a safe space in the middle of the salient where MRLS systems can operate outside the range of Russian artillery. They are also expanding to spots that are more easily defended like high ground so the Russians can't counter attack and get very far. But to gain that high ground they need to take it from the Russians and fighting uphill isn't easy.
Ukraine is attritting Russia's ability to fight. Ukraine would like more western equipment, but they are doing well with what they have. Russia is running low on many things and the supply of new equipment is limited.
www.nytimes.com
