Ukraine is paying a heavy price for every metre of
its land recaptured from Russian control.
The counter offensive, which began in June
2023, has so far failed to deliver Putin's forces and
knockout blow.
There was a lot of hope for the counter offensive.
I think by all accounts it's fair to say that
it hasn't gone entirely to plan.
Can new weapons tip the balance in Ukraine's favour in
the months to come?
Or will Putin's war of attrition grind on indefinitely?
The long wait for Ukraine's counter offensive in the South
and E
gave Russia time to dig in
and hopes that modern tanks would bring about a swift
advance never materialized.
My name is Mia Yankovic and I'm a senior news
reporter.
Russia's defenses there are really,
really strong, and Ukrainians seem to have switched to
an infantry LED tactic where they're attempting basically to try
and almost go through on foot,
supported by artillery fire. Ukraine is now
potentially the most mined country on earth,
and they're trying to get through all of this while
under the constant surveillance of reconnaissance drones.
Yet slowly Ukraine is advancing,
using longer range weapons to target Russian artillery positions and
logistics hubs while infantry painstakingly clear minefields and Russian trench
lines,
and they are instead having to go almost tree line
to tree line,
Rd. to Rd. village to village,
in order to make slow but steady games.
There are fears the onset of winter may grind this
momentum to halt.
Classically, winter tends to slow down warfare.
The ground is either impassable because it's too wet and
it's muddy,
or it's frozen over and it's hard to dig trenches
and typically
things slow down at that point.
Cutting edge weaponry has helped Ukraine in recent months,
and there's the prospect of more on the way.
There's been quite a lot of different
technology passed over to Ukraine from Western allies.
A Storm Shadow Scalp missile from the UK and France.
This is a cruise missile with the capability of striking
into the Russian space.
Another example would be the very controversial
gift of cluster munitions. It has the potential to leave
small that's unexploded around the country long after the conflict
is over.
It's very useful for doing exactly what it needs to
do right now,
which is to be firing on artillery,
infantry, moving vehicles, exactly the kind of ground fight that
it's engaged in right now.
the United States has agreed to supply F16 fighter jets.
NATO countries are training Ukrainian pilots to fly them.
It's not as simple as just giving Ukraine F sixteens,
unfortunately, but there's a really long lead time getting things
like F sixteens and then being able to use them,
and in truth, they're probably not relevant to this counter
offensive.
At this point both sides are locked in an arms
race to produce enough ammunition and drones,
as well as training up soldiers to tip the balance
in their favour.
No silver bullet for the landscape of this war.
As one analyst told me,
there is no single weapon that can win a war.
Western allies have promised unwavering support for Ukraine,
but a change in American politics could jeopardise that.
We know that Zelensky and Biden have a great relationship
and I don't think the resolve is is wavering in
any sense in the White House right now.
If the composition of the House changes towards the more
right leaning factors within the Republican Party,
you have this potential for the US to be sending
over much less military support to Ukraine.
After the failed mutiny by Yevgeny Pragoshan,
leader of the mercenary Wagner group,
the prospect of Russian internal politics playing a part in
this conflict is still very real.
What's happened with Wagner in the last few months is
really interesting in terms of
the future of the conflict,
the rebellion. It was a huge embarrassment to Putin,
but ultimately he has allegedly taken out the major threat
in the form of precaution himself,
and that may actually have
cemented his power. No one can know what's in Putin's
mind.
But what he may be hoping for at this point,
with the kind of slow,
attritional warfare that we're that we're undergoing,
would be to simply wear down the Ukrainian troops by
defending what he already has.
Essentially trying to buy time in order to to keep
Ukrainian forces just coming at him,
coming at him, and coming at him until they've spent
their abilities to fight.